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THE "CHAPPEL OF EASE" 



AND 



CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 



Commemorative Services 



AT THE 



COMPLETION OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS 
SINCE THE GATHERING OF THE 



jFirst Ct)utct) of Ct)rtst in (Euincj) 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 

1890. 






?antbcrstt2 Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



9 O'OO 



PREFACE. 



THE labor involved in getting at the facts of the History 
OP First Church, and in arranging for publication what 
else is in these pages, has been greatly lightened by the courte- 
ous assistance of many who are engaged in historical research, 
and by the encouragement of all interested in the story and 
fame of this ancient society. 

To Mr. Charles Francis Adams I am especially indebted for 
his co-operation in securing photographs of the portraits of his 
ancestors, and for the frequent use I have made of his full and 
very interesting sketcli of Quincy in the " History of Norfolk 
County." This sketch I have found to be an almost exhaustless 
treasury of facts, well chosen and skilfully connected, and the 
extent of my borrowings from it has been limited only by the 
confined scope of this book. Mr. J. P. Quincy readily fur- 
nished the engraving of Josiah Quincy, and from other mem- 
bers of his family I have obtained valuable hints. Many 
excellent suggestions have come to me from Mr. S. A. Bates, 
Braintree's noted antiquary and town clerk, and from tlie Hon. 
Samuel A. Green, Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. proffered the electro- 
type of " Dorothy Q. ; " Messrs. Ticknor & Co. permitted the use 
of the engraving of John Hancock, which was prepared for the 
" Memorial History of Boston," and the proprietors of the 
" Quincy Patriot " lent their electrotype of the Rev. John 
Hancock Meeting-House. Other illustrations I am enabled to 



iv PREFACE. 

supply from the engravings used by Dr. Lunt in the " Two Hun- 
dredth Anniversary " discourses, which were given me by Mrs. 
Revere. Mr. Haery L. Rice placed in my hands many artistic 
photographs of Quincy houses and their interiors, which have 
been of great assistance. The view of the interior of the Stone 
Temple was taken by him at my request. To all these and 
many besides who also rendered essential service my thanks are 
extended. 

Owing to the length of the historical discourses, much in 
them was omitted when they were delivered. They are now 
published in full, with notes and an appendix. 

D. M. WILSON. 
QunfCY, March, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The " Chappel OF Ease " 1 

The Church of Statesmen 33 

Commemorative Services 65 

Invocation by the Rev. R. Stebbins 69 

Prayer by the Rev. A. P. Putnam, D.D 70 

Address by the Pastor 73 

Letter op Gov. Oliver Ames 74 

Address by the Rev. S. W. Brooke 76 

Remarks op Mr. L. H. H. Johnson 80 

Letter of the Rev. J. D. Wells 81 

Address by Charles Francis Adams 82 

Address by the Rev. A. A. Ellsworth 87 

Address by Josiah Quincy 91 

Poem by Christopher P. Cranch 97 

Address by the Rev. C. R. Eliot 105 

Address by the Rev. James de Nobmandie 108 

Address BY the Rev. Joseph Osgood 110 

Persons Present at the 200th and 250th Anniversaries 112 

Letters of Congratulation 113 

Preliminary Proceedings 133 



Vi CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX. 

PAGB 

The Covenant 137 

The Deacons 138 

Meeting-Houses 139 

Gifts of Communion Vessels 147 

Other Gifts to the Church 150 

Portrait of John Wheelwright, and other Portraits and 

Pictures 151 

Moses Fiske's Autograph 159 



ILLUSTEATIONS. 



PAGE 

Stone Temple Frontispiece 

Mount Wollaston in 1839 4 

John Wheelwright 12 

QuiNCY Mansion 17 

Brackett Homestead 17 

The Webb House 25 

Birthplaces of John and John Quincy Adams 25 

The Ruggles House 25 

The Hancock Meeting-House 49 

John Adams 50 

Abigail Adams 50 

John Hancock 52 

JosiAH Quincy 54 

John Quincy Adams 56 

Mrs. John Quincy Adams '56 

Charles Francis Adams 62 

Mrs. Charles Francis Adams 62 

Gravestones of Pastor Tompson and Teacher Flynt ... 64 

Interior of Stone Temple 65 

Rev. Wm. Smith 81 

Richard Cranch 81 



Vm ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAOE 

Rev. Peter "Whitney 81 

Rev. W. p. Lunt, D.D 81 

Rev. J. D. Wells 81 

Rev. D. M. Wilson 81 

Tablet to John and Abigail Adams 103 

Tablet to John Quinct and Louisa Catherine Adams . . .111 

Invitation to 250th Anniversary 113 

" Dorothy Q." 116 

Adams Mansion 121 

Drawing-Room in Adams Mansion 121 

YoRKE Communion Cup, 1699 147 

Cranch House 155 

The Rev. John Wilson House 155 

Signature of Moses Fiske 159 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSES. 



I. 

THE "CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

For this is the Covejtant that I will make with the 
House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I 
WILL PUT MY Laws into their mind, and write them in 
their hearts. — Hebrews viii. 10. 

FOR a chnrcli to have lived two and a half centuries 
of the nineteen named after Christ may seem a 
slight distinction, most especially when that measure of 
continuance is compared, to go back no further, with the 
age of the really ancient Christian institutions of the Old 
World, — such as the Cathedral of Canterbury founded 
by Saint Augustine, or the monastic order organized by 
Saint Benedict. But when it is remembered that this 
length of life is concurrent with the history of civiliza- 
tion in New England, that it was about two hundred 
and fifty years ago that one lofty enterprise, conceived 
and executed by devout and courageous men and women, 
established the State as well as the Church ; when, too, 
we consider that whatever of holiest aspiration and 
noblest endeavor has distinguished the people of New 
England — their longing for things eternal, their obe- 



2 THE "CHAPPEL OF EASE. 

dience to laws human and divine, their domestic virtues, 
their love of liberty, their respect for learning — was 
kindled and nourished at the altar thus early erected to 
Qod, — then the rounding of two and a half centuries may 
fairly be celebrated as an event of some importance. 
With this regard, many of our old " First Churches " have 
recently observed with much solemn rejoicing their two 
hundred and fiftieth birthday. No church of them all, 
however, has, in the circumstances attending its forma- 
tion, a more exciting and picturesque history than this 
First Church of Christ in Quincy; and no other in all 
the land has become more famous for eminent and en- 
tirely noble men and women. Ours is a church with a 
story. 

Much of this story has been told on previous anniver- 
saries by two of the most noted pastors of the church, — 
the Rev. John Hancock, and the Rev. William P. Lunt, 
D. D. Their careful and eloquent discourses have served 
greatly to deepen affection for this ancient society, and 
to increase the devotion of its members to the pure 
principles of our religion. All that is left me to do now 
is to cherish the hope that I may improve in some slight 
measure the present occasion as they worthily improved 
the past occasions. 

Exciting were the circumstances, I have said, which 
attended the formation of this church. It was here, in 
this place, that the stern temper and solidifying dogma- 
tism of the Puritan came in conflict, on two notable 
occasions, with more free and fluent conceptions of life 
and belief. Had these attained permanence and power 



MORTON AND MEERYMOUNT. 3 

the course of New England history would have been 
changed materially. Certainly one of the movements 
which they opposed would have, in the tolerant and 
expanding spirit of it, so allayed the fierce dogmatic 
zeal of the Puritans, that the ruthless persecution of 
Quakers, Baptists, and so-called witches might never 
have stained the otherwise whitest character of the 
founders of our institutions. 



MORTON AND MERRYMOUNT. 

The first thing with which the ideas of the Puritans 
clashed was a conception of life. As they would put it, 
it was a matter, not of doctrine, but of practice. Mor- 
ton's enterprise at Merry mount was in the serious motive 
of it a trading adventure, and in the lighter aspects of 
it a transplanted bit of the boisterous life of the unre- 
generate Englishman of that time, who became King's 
man and Cavalier in contemptuous enmity to all those he 
called " fanatics." Judged by any standard some of the 
practices of Morton and his fellows are reprehensible, but 
surely they are made to assume a darker shade contrasted 
with the stern ambition and irreproachable life of the 
other settlers in the Bay. These jovial spirits, to whom 
it was imputed a sin to dance around a May-pole, were 
no worse than the average non -Puritan, good -easy 
Englishman who did the same thing on the village green 
across the sea. Taken back to England charged by the 
Puritans with grievous faults, Morton passes for a law- 
abiding person. Returning once more to these shores, 
black again he appears against the white ground of the 



4 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE.' 

theocracy. However we may think of this, is it not, at 
least, to be admitted that the revels of the adventurers 
at Merrymount were tempered with poetry and the 
classics ? And does not Morton claim for himself that 
one of his chief functions was to " endeavor to advance 
the dignity of the Church of England and the laudable 
use of the Book of Common Prayer " ? Had these mis- 




MEERTMOUNT. 



sionaries of " Merrie England " conducted themselves 
less dissolutely, is it not probable they still would 
have been an abomination in the sight of the Puritans ? 
Was it not the kind of their offence more than the degree 
of their offending which incensed Bradford, Endicott, and 
the rest ? Sternly the Puritans had renounced everything 
for the dogma that earthly existence, being under the 
curse, is a term of perilous probation, from which they 
were to be rescued by the one narrow outlet of justifica- 
tion. What cared they for the pastimes, or even the 
intellectual delights, of a world thus darkened by sin 



MORTON AND MERRYMOUNT. 5 

and endangering their eternal welfare ! Its pleasures, 
its beauty, its art, its graces were worse than vanities. 
They might be temptations of the Evil One. How much 
thought loses in breadth and sympathy, and life in adorn- 
ment and comfort, by thus being given over to dogma, I 
will not pause to show. However admirable their reso- 
lute strength of character and the singleness of their 
devotion, it is plain they left one side of their being 
entirely uncultivated. The more rigid of them could not 
look patiently upon even the innocent enjoyment of this 
life and the good things of it. We do not condemn them 
for this. They were so terribly in earnest to settle 
exactly right their relations to God, and to save them- 
selves wholly from the power of Satan, that everything 
outside the sphere of these efforts seemed beyond expres- 
sion inane. While in England they regarded with pity 
or ineffable scorn the men who indulged in pleasure, — 
it is to be admitted it was often sinful pleasure, — and 
when they found the same sort here in this New World 
they felt under no restraint to tolerate such " vile per- 
sons and loose-livers." And very likely it were wisest to 
conclude that in solemn times of sternest endeavor mock- 
ing " fribbles," and " debauchees " however amusing, are 
forthwith to be banished.^ Here is the motive which 
prompted hostility to Morton ; and when he made him- 
self really culpable by selling fire-arms to the savages, the 
occasion was quickly seized. From Pascataway to Ply- 
mouth the settlers united to cast out this swaggering 
sportsman, this exponent of pleasant living and " the laud- 
able use of the Book of Common Prayer." John Fiske 

1 C. F. Adams's Introduction to New English Canaan. 



6 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE. 

calls liim a "picturesque but ill-understood personage." 
An ill-used personage he was now to be also. Miles Stand- 
isli, with his " invincible army," invaded our soil, captured 
Morton, and roughly dragged him to Plymouth. Thence 
he was shipped a prisoner to England. He returned free 
the next year, only to be seized by the Boston magistrates, 
imprisoned, put in the bilboes, and to England sent once 
more. As he passed out of the bay his house was fired in 
his sight, in rough intimation that the "fanatic separatists" 
had done with him for good and all ; that " the habitation 
of the wicked should no more appear in Israel ; " and that 
henceforth this land was to be given up to sobriety of 
carriage and the preaching of the accepted dogma. 

After the dispersion of Morton and his " consorts," the 
country round about the Mount was practically unoccu- 
pied by the whites. It was known chiefly now as the 
planting ground of the tribe of Indians called the Massa- 
chusetts, and through its meadows and around the head 
of its salt-water inlets was worn the trail which ran 
between Plymouth and Boston. If a few of Morton's 
party still lingered upon the lands he claimed, they have 
left no trace to assure us of the fact. The raids of 
Miles Standish and the Boston magistrates were only too 
effectual in cutting off ten years from the age of this 
settlement, and making us the fifteenth or so, when we 
might have been the first or second, in the Bay. But as 
recompense the soil was to be planted with better seed. 
God was " sifting a whole nation that he might send 
choice grain over into this wilderness." 



THE BKAINTREE COMPANY. 



THE BRAINTREE COMPANY. 



In the summer of 1632 the company — or congrega- 
tion, rather — of the renowned minister, the Rev. Thomas 
Hooker, from Braintree in Essex County, England, began 
to " sit down " at the Mount and provide for the coming 
of their pastor and still others of the brethren. While 
they were actively engaged erecting houses to shelter 
them during the approaching winter, word came in 
August from the General Court that they were to re- 
move to Newtown, now Cambridge. They did not de- 
part at once, we surmise, for it is likely they would 
keep to the rude shelter already begun, and improve 
it throughout the short season left them. There is no 
evidence the allotments were made at Newtown and the 
names of those taking them recorded before the next 
spring. And not all, who went thither, removed at last 
to Hartford when Hooker led the Braintree company 
there. Two, we certainly know, drifted to Hingham.^ 
Some we must presume remained here. The fact that 
eight years later the town when incorporated was called 
Braintree, is evidence that settlers from Hooker's com- 
pany continued here and acquired influence. We may 
reasonably account this the beginning of the permanent 
settlement at the Mount. 

THE MOUNT ANNEXED TO BOSTON. 

Hooker was a noted divine, and his people entirely 
worthy persons. But a more important company still 

^ Page's History of Cambridge. 



8 THE "CHAPPEL OP EASE. 

was about this time looked for from England. One 
wonders if the Braintree company was ordered away to 
make room for it. John Cotton, the famous rector of 
St. Botolph's, in Boston, England, was coming over, and 
with him many others, some being wealthy and influen- 
tial. Where should they be bestowed ? The arrival 
of Cotton in September, 1633, and about two hundred 
more made this question urgent. At once the Governor 
and Council, together with the ministers and elders of 
all the churches, met to consider the matter. The new 
arrivals desired they " might sit down where they might 
keep store of cattle." Boston, with scarce seven hundred 
acres, and much of that marsh and rough thicket, had 
no sufficient accommodation. But in Boston the great 
Cotton and his company must be retained. So " it was 
agreed by full consent that the fittest place for him was 
Boston, and in that respect [of scarcity of land] those of 
Boston might take farms in any part of the Bay not be- 
longing to other towns." ^ Cotton was then added to the 
Boston church as Teacher, and the General Court in the 
spring of 1634 ordered that " Boston shall have conve- 
nient enlargement at Mount Wollaston." Four " indif- 
ferent men " were appointed to draw up a plan of the 
lands there and apportion them. Men not " indifferent " 
there were, who had already fixed their desires upon 
certain choice portions of the newly acquired territory.^ 
These were to be provided for. But first their respect 

1 Winthrop, i. 133. 

2 December. Fir.^t. 1G31. — It is granted that Mr. Newbery shall have 
the hedgcy ground that lies in the bottom betwixt TiTs house and the water 
next Mr. Cottington's farme in p'te of the medow that he is to have. — Dor- 
chester Record. 



THE MOUNT ANNEXED TO BOSTON. 9 

for the ministry found expression in a large grant of land 
to their pastor, John Wilson, then absent on a voyage to 
England to bring over his wife. Already he had received 
land by Mystic side, but now on the 10th of December, 
1634, there were bestowed upon him as many acres "at 
his election " in this favored place as his former grant 
amounted to, and in exchange for it. He returned in 
October of 1635, and seeking to possess himself of his 
allotment found it encumbered with the claims of earlier 
settlers from Dorchester and the original rights of the 
Indians. Evidently it was not given him to take land 
anywhere •' at his election," but only where it was set 
apart for him on the plan. A matter of foreordination 
seems to have predominated his power of " election," — 
an association of these doctrines not entirely acceptable 
to the Boston theologian. However, to compensate him 
for money spent in purchasing the rights of claimants he 
was permitted to keep his land by Mystic, and additional 
acres were granted him at the Mount. Ten days after 
this was done there was " bound out there what may 
be sufficient for Mr. William Coddington and Edmund 
Quinsey to have for their particular farms there." For 
situation their allotment excelled, and we hear not an 
echo of conflicting claims. These were the men not " in- 
different," who were not, for fairness' sake, to be appoint- 
ed on the committee to draw up a plan, yet who, long 
before this, had selected their lands and purchased all 
rights of Indians and others. Coddington was the treasu- 
rer of the colony, a man of substance and solid influence, 
noted too as builder of the first brick house in Boston. 
Quincy was also a man of means and commanding char- 



10 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

acter, chosen to office soon after his arrival here. The 
grant these two men received amounted to above a thou- 
sand acres in one broad strip bordering on the sea, and 
extending from Sachem's Brook to a point beyond the 
hill which Morton made famous. 

These prior claims settled, Boston was ready to give 
members of Cotton's company and others of its own 
congregation sufficient allotments. Atherton Hough, 
sometime mayor of Boston, England, and a man of con- 
sequence among Cotton's followers, had laid out for him 
a large estate of six hundred acres on the Neck, to this 
day named after him. Another devoted adherent of 
Cotton was William Hutchinson. His wife, who was 
more devoted still, and who welcomed the wilderness 
that had Cotton to preach in it, was the famous Anne 
Hutchinson, so prominent later in the first great doc- 
trinal controversy of the colony. This William Hutch- 
inson received a " great lott " adjoining Wilson's grant 
on the west, in what is now North Quincy and East 
Milton. At the same time that these large grants were 
made, three divisions of allotments were marked out 
for the " common people." ^ These allotments were ap- 
portioned at the rate of seven acres for every person 
in the family, and were arranged along Town River 
and mostly to the south of it. They were called the 
" Brethren's Lots," for all receiving them were members 
of the Boston congregation. It is a notable fact that 
only such as were members of the congregation, or likely 
to be, were granted lands. A church was settling here, — 
a congregation of earnest persons who could no longer 

1 Boston Records, pp. 21, 46, 4 7. 



THE MOUNT ANNEXED TO BOSTON. 11 

endure in silence the candles, the posturing, and the 
doctrines imposed by the bishops, and who, not caring 
to abide the perils of open speech (the imprisonment, 
the whipping, the maiming, which Laud imposed), had 
fled for peace to this wide and free wilderness. With 
all their home-making, still uppermost in their thoughts 
were spiritual things. They were so disposing them- 
selves as best ''to worship God and enjoy him forever." 
As yet their meeting-house was in Boston, and thither 
on the Lord's Day they conscientiously repaired. But so 
rapid was the growth of the new settlement that two 
years had not elapsed since the first allotment was made, 
when the inhabitants were petitioning to be set off as 
an independent town and church. In December of 1636 
eight persons, with the Governor at their head, were 
chosen to consider " of Mount Wollastone business, and 
for the ripening thereof how there may be a town and 
church there with the consent of this town's inhabi- 
tants." ^ " Many meetings were about it. The great let 
was, in regard it was given to Boston for upholding 
the town and church there, which end would be frus- 
trated by the removal of so many chief men as would go 
thither. For help of this it was propounded that such 
as dwelt there should pay six-pence the acre, yearly, 
for such lands as lay within a mile of the water, and 
three-pence for that which lay farther off." ^ 

All conspired to the speedy establishment here of one 
of the most prosperous and progressive towns in the 
colony. The " chief men," intelligent, ambitious, and 
wealthy, were here ; the people, sober and industrious, 

1 Boston Records, p. 14. 2 Winthrop, i. 233. 



12 THE "CHAPPEL OF EASE," 

were here in sufficient and increasing numbers. All the 
preliminaries were arranged ; actually all but the final 
step taken. A church too was virtually gathered, and 
only waited for that joining in solemn covenant which 
should launch it into an independent and influential ca- 
reer. Indeed, the very character of that church seemed 
to be determined. For some time now, events in the 
colony had been bringing to the surface the progres- 
sive and conservative instincts of the people and array- 
ing them in opposing parties. And as a number of the 
more liberal sort had already established themselves at 
the Mount, others were looking in that direction as to 
a retreat for the peaceful development of their opinions. 
The right minister only seemed wanting, but he also 
was at hand in Boston, — a man by temperament and 
scholarship fitted to lead an intelligent, truth-seeking 
congregation. The next month he received an invita- 
tion to labor at the Mount. 



JOHN WHEELWEIGHT. 

The Rev. John Wheelwright arrived in Boston with 
his family the 26th of May, 1636, about seven months 
before the committee was chosen to arrange for an inde- 
pendent church at the Mount. He was at this time forty- 
four years of age, in the full strength of manhood, ener- 
getic, independent, aggressive. Oliver Cromwell was his 
college classmate and friend ; they were alike in the fear- 
lessness and stubbornness of their character. Persistently 
Wheelwright preached against the ceremonial innovations 
of Laud, and when silenced for it resolutely turned his 



11 




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JOHN WHEELWRIGHT. • 13 

face to the New World. He found affairs not entirely 
peaceful here. Mrs. Hutchinson, " his sister," as Win- 
throp called her (Mr. Hutchinson was his wife's brother), 
was beginning to attract attention by her original ideas, 
and by daring to criticise some of the ministers. Now 
two years in the colony, she by her tender, neighborly 
offices had endeared herself as " a dear saint and servant 
of God," as her husband described her ; and by her bright 
intelligence had become a necessity to women spiritually 
perplexed. Woman then, as regards religion at least, 
was the suppressed sex, quite silently subservient to the 
solemn ecclesiastical routine, her spontaneity and swift 
instincts obstructed by ponderous masculine formality. 
With all a woman's disdain of mechanism, Mrs. Hutch- 
inson expressed in the most luminous way just what was 
in the minds of her sisters, and then led them on to 
higher interpretations of the letter and finer perceptions 
of the spirit. She was interesting; they liked to hear 
her talk, and gained more profit from her than from the 
most " painful preaching." In time, as Winthrop declares, 
" she had more resort to her for counsel about matters of 
conscience than any minister (I might say all the elders) 
in the country." And from a few who dropped in to talk 
with her about the sermons preached of a Sunday or lec- 
ture day, she eventually gathered around her, twice in 
the week regularly, as many as from sixty to a hundred 
women. This went on at first with the entire commen- 
dation of the ministers. It was like a modern revival. 
But trouble began when Mrs. Hutchinson discovered that 
Pastor Wilson's preaching was not so spiritual as that 
of her favorite divine. Teacher Cotton. She criticised 



14 . THE "CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

other ministers too ; said they preached a " covenant of 
works," and hinted that an austere countenance was no 
sure sign of piety. 

The ministers of the colony were a peculiar class, ex- 
alted by their sacrifices for the faith of the Reformers, 
and reverenced as the prophets, the very mouths of God. 
" What ye do unto them, the Lord Jesus takes as done 
unto himself," was gravely asserted. " And now sud- 
denly," as Mr. C. F. Adams the younger writes, " a 
woman came, and calmly and persistently intimated that 
as a class God's prophets in New England were not what 
they seemed." This was more than could be borne by 
even " very humble and unworthy instruments of God." 
To teach strange doctrine was bad enough, but to doubt 
the accredited servants of the Most High was worse. 
Fairly, however, they were open to this criticism. The 
weak and disagreeable side of Puritanism was its insist- 
ence upon uniformity in doctrine and the upholding of 
the ordinances. The same phrases were expected from 
every one, the same outward demeanor, the same pious 
routine. One might make a business of all this, go 
through it mechanically, appear to be very devout, and 
still remain unspiritual within. 

From this the teaching of Mrs. Hutchinson was a 
revolt. She laid the emphasis upon spirituality. No 
matter about the outward demeanor and the painful 
effort to fulfil the law. Have the heart right; let the 
spiritual principle be active within you, — then whatever 
is worthy and of good report will follow. She really rose 
to a sublime religious philosophy when she declared that 
the individual might have union with the Holy Spirit, and 



JOHN WHEELWRIGHT. 15 

that then he is more than a creature : he is immortal, 
has present revelations of God, and is filled with ravishing 
joy. What have we better than that to-day? To be 
sure, when one attempts to define such union he is lia- 
ble to ambiguity of expression ; and when he tries to 
extort too much from private revelations he is likely to 
fall into extravagances. In these particulars the Hutch- 
inson party exposed themselves to misunderstandings. 
Nevertheless here was a genuine advance of the Spirit, 
a genial enlightenment in the natural evolution of the 
Puritan ideal. 

Wheelwright allied himself at once and enthusiasti- 
cally with the " Covenant of Grace " party. Not that 
Mrs. Hutchinson now converted him. These heart-search- 
ing principles were held in common by them both and 
by others while in England. They might almost be 
called the Lincolnshire varient of non-conformity. All 
the Hutchinsons held it to be the truth. Cotton and 
Hough and others from the fens district were sympa- 
thetic, and doubtless Wheelwright during the three years 
he lived near Lincoln under the ban of the bishops 
labored as he did in this land " to bring Christ into 
the hearts of the people." By not one of the liberals 
is this doctrine introduced as a thing strange and revo- 
lutionary. It is regarded by them simply as the ideal 
puritanism, the faith of the Reformers at its best, the 
truth, the hope of the free enjoyment of which had 
brought them all to this country. Why it should give 
offence to any was no doubt a surprise to Wheelwright. 
On the side of this vital and sincere effort to realize 
God in the heart he found arrayed the entire Boston 



16 THE '^CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

church, with the exception of Wilson the pastor, Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, and one or two others. "Many out 
of the church were her converts ; yea," says Winthrop, 
bitterly, " many profane persons became of her opinion." 
It was a popular movement sweeping into its current the 
chief town in the Bay, and some in other towns. Glad to 
find Wheelwright with them, this party was minded to 
place him with Wilson and Cotton as a third minister 
over Boston church. On a Sunday in the October after 
his arrival this project was set in motion, and on the 30th 
was taken up for definite action. Opposition was made ; 
even Cotton, who was claimed by the liberals, saying he 
" could not consent, . . . calling in one whose spirit they 
knew not, and one who seemed to dissent in judgment ; 
. . . and though he thought reverently of his godli- 
ness and abilities, so as he could be content to live under 
such a ministry, yet seeing he was apt to raise doubt- 
ful disputations he could not consent to choose him to 
that place. . . . Whereupon the church gave way that 
he might be called to a new church to be gathered at 
Mount Wollaston." 



WHEELWKIGHT CALLED TO THE MOUNT. 

The promptness with which Wheelwright was diverted 
from Boston church to the church growing up at the 
Mount suggests it was a purpose held in hand as a second 
resort by the liberals. I am tempted to say that the in- 
tention was becoming manifest to build in this place a 
church in which the new spirit and expanding views 
might be peaceably unfolded. At all events the enterprise 




THE OLDER QUINCY MANSION. 




THE BRACKETT HOMESTEAD. 



HELIOTV^E PRINTING CO., BOSTON 



WHEELWRIGHT CALLED TO THE MOUJ^T. 17 

of a new church and town ripened rapidly. It was about 
a month after Wheelwright began to labor here, in De- 
cember of 1636, that the eight persons with the Governor 
at their head were chosen " to consider of Mount Wollas- 
ton business, — how there may be a church and town 
there." At this time Wheelwright lodged, perhaps, as 
the occasion required, in Coddington's house, by " Mount 
WoUastone River ; " and it may be the preaching at first 
was done in the same place.^ But now the minister was 
to have an estate and house of his own. In the February 
following, Coddington and Wright were ordered to lay out 
for him where most convenient, "without prejudice to 
setting up of a town there," two hundred and fifty 
acres. At the same time others who confided in him 
and followed him, applied for and received allotments.^ 
The Wheelwright grant started with forty acres in the 
three-hill marsh, with five acres for house-lot (where 
perhaps the old Brackett homestead now is), and two 
hundred and five acres at the end of it extending into 
the country. Here, by the banks of " Town Brook " 

^ That Cod(linp,ton then had a hou?e at the Mount is made clear by what 
Lechford records in liis Note Book. Wm. Tyng, who subsequently purchased 
the Coddington estate, wants to lease it to a Mr. Reade. One of the condi- 
tions is that Reade shall allow Tyng entertainment when he visits the farm, 
" and at these times he shall have the use of the chamber which Mr. Codding- 
ton used to lye in for his lodging." There was also a large barn. The build- 
ings were situated about where the old Quincy mansion is on Black's Creek. 
The stream was first called INIount Wollaston River, then Coddington's Brook, 
next Quincy 's Brook, and since, after every occupant of the historic house 
there. The latest appellation is Butler's Brook. This home-lot between 
bi'ook and pond and near tide-landing, and with extensive meadows on every 
hand, was the prize place in the plantation. 

^ Among these Xicholas Needham, William Wardwell, a servant of Edmund 
Quincy, and William Cole are found with Wheelwright when he went to Exeter. 

2 



18 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

running through "the heart" of the settlement, was 
his farm ; and here he began at once to make a home 
for wife and children, and to root himself in our soil. 
Regularly he ministered to the congregation gathering 
about him, winning the confidence of his people, and 
working together with them to establish a choice com- 
munity. In this very beginning of our church it was, for 
numbers, quite strong. Besides those of the Mount it in- 
cluded, probably, some of Dorchester's people living this 
side the Neponset, and some from Weymouth, where they 
too "had drunk in some of Mrs. Hutchinson's opin- 
ions." But however large, it was not yet an indepen- 
dent church ; it was only what Lawyer Lechford called 
a " Chappel of Ease, . . . where a neighboring minister 
or brother preacheth and exerciseth prayer every Lord's 
day," the people still members of Boston church, and 
as sign of that receiving the sacrament there. 



SWOKDS IN A sermon. 

On a fast, kept Jan. 19, 1636, most, it may be, 
went to Boston to " receive." At all events their 
minister was there, for in the afternoon, after Mr. 
Cotton had preached a " directive " sermon on recon- 
ciliation, "Mr. Wheelwright was desired by the church 
to exercise as a private brother by way of prophecy." 
Whereupon he pushed his way slowly to the pulpit 
through the crowded congregation which filled Boston's 
primitive meeting-house, took a sermon from his pocket 
and spread it before him. Eager and alert were the 
faces he looked upon. Already that day the people 



SWORDS IN A SERMON. 19 

had listened to two long discourses,^ and to as many 
prayers, "unmerciful" in their length, as the unsympa- 
thetic Lechford describes them. Still, they were hungry 
to hear more with regard to the controversy which 
agitated the town, and were in strained expectancy of 
word or phrase which, according to their bias, would 
be either luminous with truth or dark with heresy. 
Wheelwright felt the stimulus of the occasion. His 
sermon, written at a hint that it would be called for, 
he preached with fervency. Although he girded vigor- 
ously against "legalists," — all "those under a covenant 
of works," — he was wholly unconscious that he was 
uttering anything incendiary. And yet no other ser- 
mon ever preached on this continent has had such a 
remarkable effect. Immediately it arrayed " legalists " 
in open and concerted hostility against "' antinomians," 
and brought the colony to the very verge of ruin. 
Read that sermon carefully and you will see it is a 
quite sensible production, written closely to the occa- 
sion, and having for chief exhortation the " keeping 
Christ in a spiritual way." You may discern a thread 
of fire running through its uncouth phraseology; but 
there is really not enough flame in it to account for 
the great conflagration which ensued. To be sure he 
says, " We must all prepare for a spiritual combat ; " 
to " keep the Lord Jesus Christ," the children of God 
" ought to show themselves valiant ; they should have 
their swords ready; they must fight, and fight with 
spiritual weapons." Of course the " swords " are figura- 
tive, and the warfare which was urged a wordy one. 

1 Mercurius Americanus, p. 216, in C. H. Bell's "Life of J. ^\Tieelwrigh.t." 



20 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

But the "legalists," affronted anew by so fearless an 
arraignment of such as opposed " free grace " on an 
occasion so notable, and alarmed at the formidable pro- 
portions to which the new movement was attaining, 
were disposed to take them in a literal sense. Some- 
thing must be done to suppress the heresy. As Mr. C. 
F. Adams the younger says, " they greatly needed a 
scapegoat ; and a scapegoat they found ready to their 
hands in the pastor at the Mount." 

Wheelwright, conscious only that on a distinguished 
occasion he had creditably delivered himself in duti- 
ful obedience to " an over-ruling conscience," returned 
quietly to his labors here. Those of the other party 
were active, however ; they took up and tossed about 
the martial phrases of his sermon, wrought themselves 
by this exercise into a condition to proceed to extremi- 
ties, and spread among themselves " a silent decree 
that Wheelwright was to be disciplined." Concerted 
action brought all the ministers of the Bay together 
at the next meeting of the General Court, March 9, 
1637. It was nearly all the colony against the Boston 
congregation and the congregation at the Mount. 
Some of the laity in Roxbury, Dorchester, Salem, and 
other towns took part with the liberals, but to a man 
the ministers outside of Boston and the Mount were 
bitterly antagonistic. Reason for this is found in the 
fact that their authority as a class seemed questioned, 
and their plan of a theocracy seemed imperilled. Also, 
it must be admitted, that many of them were abso- 
lutely bigoted in their conservatism. " I will petition 
to be chosen the universal idiot of the world," said 



THE INQUISITION IN NEW ENGLAND. 21 

Ward of Ipswich, " if all the wits under the heavens 
can lay their heads together and find an assertion 
worse than this, — that men ought to have liberty of 
their conscience, and that it is persecution to debar 
them of it." Welde of Roxbury and Shepard of Cam- 
bridge had no words to express their condemnation of 
Mrs. Hutchinson when she denied the resurrection of 
the body ; and when she avowed the belief, now held 
by many Christians of all sects, that "the coming of 
Christ is his coming to us in union," Wilson cried out, 
"I hold this opinion to be dangerous and damnable, 
and to be no less than Sadduceeism and atheism, and 
therefor to be detested." At the hands of such, those 
of liberal opinion would fare hard. 

THE INQUISITION IN NEW ENGLAND. 

Before a court thus constituted in the majority of it 
Wheelwright was summoned. The doors were closed, 
and he was called upon to " satisfy the court about 
some passages of his sermon which seemed to be offen- 
sive." He declined to give answer to a body so inqui- 
sitorial, and a petition was presented, signed by more 
than forty members of the Boston church, praying 
that the doors be opened. The petition was at first 
ignored ; but finally the doors were thrown open, and 
a great and excited assembly filled the meeting-house. 
Again the sermon was produced, and it was charged 
that Wheelwright had " inveighed against all that 
walked in a covenant of works, had called them anti- 
christs, and had stirred up the people against them." 



22 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

He justified his sermon, and stoutly declared that if 
any did walk in a covenant of works them he did 
mean. What the court sought to prove w^as that 
Wheelwright's words were not to be taken in a gen- 
eral sense, but were particularly directed against his 
brother ministers. And now these ministers were asked 
"if they in their ministry did walk in such a way?" 
They desired a season to consider the matter ; but as 
they were the chief prosecutors, it was no surprise 
when they uprose in the full company of them. Cotton 
only excepted, and with one voice acknowledged they 
did. " So after much debate the court adjudged him 
guilty of sedition and also of contempt." Coddington 
was a member of that court, and, as Mr. C. H. Bell 
points out, has left his testimony that he and Gov- 
ernor Vane and most of the laymen were opposed to 
the condemnation of Wheelwright ; " but the priests 
got two of the magistrates on their side, and so got 
the major part of them." Then a remonstrance, entirely 
respectful in its character, was signed by about sixty 
of the Boston laymen. It testified to Wheelwright's 
peaceful and spiritual intentions. The most the court 
could be moved to do was to defer sentence till its 
next session, and barely restrained itself from imitat- 
ing the bishops in their tyranny and silencing their vic- 
tim. He, still astonished that his sermon should have 
been so ill-construed, returned to his labors at the Mount, 
where, nothing subdued, " he openly protested against 
the errors with which he was charged."^ 

The General Court at its next session. May 17, 1637, 

1 Mercurius Americanus, p. 191, in C. H. Bell's " Life of J. Wheelwright." 



THE INQUISITION IN NEW ENGLAND. 23 

was ordered to meet at New Town, now Cambridge. 
Boston too entirely sided with the liberals to suit the 
majority. It was a court of elections ; but before pro- 
ceeding with that business Governor Vane and others 
attempted to present a petition in behalf of Wheel- 
wright and in defence of liberty of speech. Their 
hope was in the people, and in their sense of fair play 
and regard for the freedom of Englishmen. But the 
"priests" were out in force; Pastor Wilson climbed 
a tree and harangued the multitude. After a bitter 
struggle the liberal party was defeated, and Vane and 
Coddington and " all of that faction," wrote Winthrop 
in triumph, " were left quite out." As there was soon 
to be a fast in which it would be convenient to con- 
fer about differences, "the court gave Wheelwright 
respite to the next session in August to bethink him- 
self, that, retracting and reforming his error, the court 
might show him favor, which otherwise he must not 
expect. His answer was, that if he had committed 
sedition then he ought to be put to death ; and if we 
did mean to proceed against him, he meant to appeal 
to the King's Court, for he would retract nothing." ^ 
On May 24, the day of the fast, Vane and Codding- 
ton, to emphasize their dissent from the methods of 
their opponents, ignored the Boston assembly and its 
conference and kept the day at the Mount with Mr. 
Wheelwright. A pleasant memory is it to cherish, that 
the pure and high-minded Sir Harry Vane, — a hero 
unsurpassed in that heroic time, the fearless and far- 
seeing statesman of the Puritan revolution, — found in 

1 Winthrop, i. 265. 



24 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

the little gathering of worshippers at the Mount the 
one church in New England entirely congenial to his 
broad sympathies and tolerant spirit ! No doubt the 
'' Chappel of Ease " was filled that day with the 
friends of light and liberty. Stout Deacon Bass of 
Roxbury church was there, perhaps, with others of 
such as were afterward excommunicated for their 
opinions. Perhaps some were there from Weymouth 
and Dorchester. At all events it was a notable day in 
our ecclesiastical history, and Wheelwright had hearers 
not a few. 

That day of humiliation had no peaceful issue. In- 
stead, the strife deepened and extended. The conserva- 
tives sat in the seats of the magistrates ; and when in 
July there arrived from England a ship in which were 
friends of the liberals, they were not permitted to land. 
It was a monstrous act of injustice. Not knowing to 
what a pass affairs had come in the colony, these peo- 
ple had forsaken their pleasant homes and come to 
these shores for peace and freedom. To their surprise 
they found, instead, an oppression as harsh as that 
exercised by the prelates, and a reception more inhos- 
pitable than that of the rude sea to which they were 
again driven. Cotton was so grieved that be was minded 
to leave the plantation. Vane in an outburst of indig- 
nation protested against the outrage, and pleaded for 
tolerance. His words fell upon ears deaf to everything 
but what " is usual among us," upon hearts hardened 
by dogma. Altogether disappointed he returned to 
England, where high political ideals beckoned him on 
to his trao-ic end. 




John Quincy Adams. 
BIRTHPLACES OF PRESIDENTS. 



John Adams. 




WEBB HOUSE. 
Taken from near the site of oldest Stone Church. 




Rear View. Front View, 

RUGGLES HOUSE, 1641. 

Now occupied by Mr. J. H. Adams and Miss E. C Adams. 



MgLlO^YPE PRINTING CO.. SOSrON. 



THE IT^QUISITION m NEW ENGLAND. 25 

Relieved of his presence, the ecclesiastical machine in 
all its ponderousness and solemnity was set in motion 
to put an end to- all heresy. A synod of all the 
churches, the first of its kind in this new world, met 
at New Town (Cambridge) the 3 0th of August, 1637. 
For three weeks it sat in session, raking together 
all the " erroneous opinions " which partisanship had 
charged against the liberals. They were found to be 
eighty in number, to say nothing of " nine unwhole- 
some expressions." When the slander and the gossip 
and the misunderstandings were abstracted from these, 
they were reduced to just three points of difference 
between Wheelwright and the rest of the ministers. 
Nevertheless, the eighty and nine opinions and expres- 
sions were condemned; Wheelwright was condemned, 
and Mrs. Hutchinson's meetinc^s were " agreed to be 
disorderly and without rule." The Boston members, 
including those from Mount Wollaston, calling for wit- 
nesses to the eighty errors and the names of such as 
made charges, and being persistently refused, retired 
early from the synod. The remainder then " carried 
on matters so peaceably, and concluded them so com- 
fortably in love," to use Winthrop's words, that they 
were of opinion that all was now settled, — that by the 
resolution of a synod thinking had been abolished, and 
the free spirit of man effectually harnessed to dogma. 
" But," laments Winthrop, " it fell out otherwise. For 
though Mr. Wheelwright and those of his party had 
been clearly confuted and confounded, yet they per- 
sisted in their opinions." To the congregation at the 
Mount its minister "continued his preaching after his 



26 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

former manner." Here he always found sympathy, and 
to a right understanding of his doctrines could confi- 
dently appeal at a later day. 

THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE BUILT. 

It was at this time, the spring and summer of 1G37, 
that the first meeting-house for worshippers in this 
place was built. There is no evidence for this, but 
probability favors it. The meeting-house is a recog- 
nized land-mark when the town records begin in 1640. 
The energetic Wheelwright would surely do his utter- 
most to have a place in which to shelter his congrega- 
tion ; and we may presume that his prominent parish- 
ioners who were looking to this place as their home, — 
Coddington, Mrs. Judith Quincy,^ the Hutchinsons, Sar- 
gent Savage, and others, — would ably second his efforts. 
The house was situated just to the south of the bridge 
which then crossed Town River on the highway to 
Weymouth and Plymouth. It was solidly built of 
stone, — whether for defence against the Indians or as 
evidence of the deliberate purpose and settled feelings 
of those who were to occupy it, we cannot tell. At 
all events it was, so far as we know, the first stone 
meeting-house built in New England. For a hundred 
years it served the religious and civic occasions of the 
town, and was then superseded by the house built in 
1732, under the ministry of the Rev. John Hancock. 

* Edmund Quincy died in 1635, leaving a widow and two children "in tlie 
wilderness." 



LIBERALS DISARMED AND BANISHED. 27 

After the synod, religious matters could not be left 
in their unsettled state, — Mrs. Hutchinson still expound- 
ing at Boston, and Wheelwright preaching other offen- 
sive sermons at the Mount. For two months more 
they were tolerated ; and then when the court met in 
November it was decisively resolved to uproot all 
heresy, swiftly and thoroughly. 

LIBERALS DISARMED AND BANISHED. 

No Star Chamber ever flung bolt more ruthless than 
that which was now hurled by '' saints against saints." 
The sentence hanging over the head of Wheelwright was 
let fall ; he was disfranchised and banished. Mrs. Hutch- 
inson was banished. Then the sixty leading men of 
Boston who had mildly remonstrated that Wheelwright 
was peaceful and guiltless of sedition, were treated as 
criminals, all of them disarmed, and the more prominent 
banished also. The excuse for this act of tyranny was 
that the magistrates feared an uprising. They had 
indeed, through their injustice, cause to fear it ; yet 
no liberal of them all ever made the least show of 
violence, and with one exception none of them ever 
exhibited any loose behavior. In the turbulent history 
of religion it was once more the resort to force of 
a stronger party, to rid itself of those differing from 
it in opinion. The churches followed up the banish- 
ments by excommunicating all their members who had 
manifested independence or liberality. It was winter- 
time, and the snow lay deep ; but scourged by the op- 
pressor, some of the worthiest of those who sought here 



28 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

a haven of rest must face once more the wilderness. 
Wheelwright, the fearless preacher of "Christ in the 
life;" Coddington, the independent and able counsellor; 
John Coggeshallj stout of heart and outspoken ; the 
Hutchinsons, all of them high-minded and truth-loving, 
— these and others must leave the homes they had 
founded in hope and affection, their property sacrificed, 
or actually confiscated. " Because it was winter," Mrs. 
Hutchinson was not immediately driven forth, but was 
put in the keeping of her enemies, who tortured her with 
questions, confutations, and censures. She was alone, and 
entirely at their mercy. Her husband and her stanch- 
est friends were in Rhode Island, negotiating for the 
purchase from the Indians of Acquidneck. Even her 
pastor, John Cotton, for whose ministrations she had 
crossed the ocean, deserted her, and " admonished her 
with much zeal and detestation of her errors." After 
trying 'her at two church-meetings, during which Welde 
and ShejDard and Wilson and other ministers displayed 
their skill in ensnaring, browbeating, and confusing her 
whom in contempt they called " but a woman," she was 
solemnly excommunicated, — in set words delivered up 
to Satan, and "in the name of Christ commanded as a 
leper to withdraw herself out of the congregation." So 
the weary woman before the winter had quite gone, in 
the spring of 1638, " went by water to her farm at the 
Mount," and then "by land to Providence, and so to 
the island in the Narragansett Bay which her husband 
and the rest of that sect had purchased of the Indians." 
Further we might follow her, and tell of her wander- 
ings and of her tragic death at the hands of the sav- 



LIBEKALS DISARMED AND BANISHED. 29 

ages; but it pertains not to our history, and is all sad 
enough. 

Wheelwright had been given fourteen days in which 
he was to settle his affairs and leave the colony. Upon 
his own request he was dismissed to his family at the 
Mount, his parishioner, Atherton Hough, becoming bonds- 
man for him. Here in his own home, and surrounded 
by sympathizing friends, he prepared for his departure. 
Others also were going, and there was much sad work 
and sorrowful parting to do. On the last Sunday before 
he went he gathered his little congregation once more 
about him, and preached his farewell sermon. It is on 
record that he retracted nothing, and even more sturdily 
than ever defended himself against unjust charges, and 
expounded his ideal puritanism. It was the last sermon 
he ever preached at the Mount ; it was the last to be 
preached in the little church there for some time. 

Leaving his wife and children. Wheelwright set out 
with some voluntary exiles of his flock for Pascataway, 
the coast region of what is now New Hampshire. It was 
bitter cold, and the snow lay unusually deep, so that as 
he afterward declared, it was marvellous he got thither 
at all. There he and his companions from the Mount, 
together with some who came in that ship whose passen- 
gers were refused a landing, bought a large tract of coun- 
try of the Indians, laid the foundations of the important 
settlement of Exeter, New Hampshire, and established the 
first church of it. Mrs. Hutchinson had intended to join 
him there, and she was to sail from the Mount with his 
wife and children; but as we have seen, she and her 
husband eventually threw in their lot with the Rhode 



30 THE " CHAPPEL OF EASE." 

Island exiles. And now in this same spring of 1638 
Wheelwright's wife with her children and his mother, 
accompanied by other families of the pioneers, left to join 
their husbands in the new plantation in the north. 

THE LIBERAL PARTY CHARACTERIZED. 

So with a heavy hand the " Chappel of Ease " at the 
Mount was abolished. For the second time the sterner 
spirit of the Puritan lifted itself in anger against this 
place, and for the second time its inhabitants were swept 
away. The exodus from the Mount was large and im- 
portant, those cast out being since reckoned among the 
honorable founders of two such considerable places as 
Newport, Rhode Island, and Exeter, New Hampshire. 
We have ever since suffered from the loss ; and the in- 
jury done the entire colony by the rough discomfiture 
and banishment of these sincere disciples of light and lib- 
erty cannot be measured. They were taking the next 
step in the logical development of the faith of the Re- 
formers. The ministers were content to stay with what 
was "usually held among them;" the "authority of the 
Scriptures" was wholly in the interpretations they had 
already made. With this persuasion Puritanism was a 
closed thing, incapable of progress and prone to perse- 
cution. But in the Wheelwright party was the manifes- 
tation of growth. They were not only open to new 
thoughts, but were advocates of the freedom of thought 
itself. The right of free speech, the principle of tolera- 
tion, the privilege of every man to do his own thinking 
and his own interpreting, — these are the things which 



THE LIBEKAL PARTY CHARACTERIZED. 31 

break in light from the darkness of that controversy. 
Do not think that those sensible, those intelligent lay- 
men of Boston church and other churches in the Bay 
were carried away with some fanciful doctrine no one 
now cares about. No, it was not that. Though the new 
ideas appealed to their mind and conscience, what most 
profoundly stirred them was the assault upon the dearly 
cherished freedom of Englishmen. They demanded fair 
play, they resisted tyranny. Much as they revered their 
ministers they could not endure their dictum that it was 
"corrupt judgment and practice" to question what min- 
ister or magistrate said or did. Mrs. Hutchinson pre- 
cisely expressed their sentiments, when she said in her 
defence that "it was never in her heart to slight any 
man, but only that man should be kept in his own place 
and not set in the room of God." 

THEY " STILL LIVE ! " 

The class which presumed to lift itself "' in the room 
of God" had its way; the advocates of individual free- 
dom were suppressed. We cherish the conviction, how- 
ever, that not in vain they strove against tyranny. We 
love to think that in this church, especially, their influ- 
ence is still potent. To make this plain, what can I do 
better than to quote the words of Charles F. Adams the 
younger, from whom I have already obtained so much ? 

" Since its foundation this parish," he writes, " has shown 
always a noticeable leaning toward a liberal theology. It was 
never Orthodox. In this respect it was in sharp contrast with 
its sister church of the Middle Precinct, and the ministers of 
the two, never changing sides, more than once engaged in sharp 



32 THE " CUAPPEL OF EASE." 

doctrinal controversy. And so each successive pastor influenced 
the people, and the tendency of the people operated back in the 
selection of pastors, until the old order of things passed wholly 
away. It is therefore no improbable surmise, that a little 
leaven in this case also leavened the whole lump ; the seed sown 
by Wheelwright in 1637 bore its fruit in the great New Eng- 
land protest of two centuries later, when, under the lead of 
Channing, the descendants in the seventh generation of those 
who had listened to the first pastor at the Mount broke away 
finally and forever from the religious tenets of the Puritans." ^ 

Assent we readily to all that ; and may we not also 
surmise that civil as well as ecclesiastical history is in- 
debted, in the development of its higher and ideal prin- 
ciples, to this early infusion of the spirit of independence 
and respect for soul liberty ? Into what other ancient 
church of all the land has there been born so great a 
number of notable men with an even instinctive hatred 
of oppression and love of freedom ? We need not recite 
their names or their deeds, — they shine with seven-fold 
light in the splendor of our greatest national achieve- 
ments. We cannot stop to praise them; but they sum- 
mon us to present duty, and to exercise the privilege 
of honoring our high traditions by loyalty to truth and 
consecration to right. Before us is liberty more glorious 
than even the fathers conceived, and an application of 
the laws of justice more sympathetic and comprehensive 
than the world has yet witnessed. Toward that, and not 
to the past, turn we our faces. "1 think the soul to be 
nothing but light," said Mrs. Hutchinson. The light is 
exhaustless. May it with endless shining break forth 
in the faith and the works of this ancient church ! 

1 Sketch of Quincy, p. 275 ; History of Norfolk Co. 



II. 

THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

The glory op this latter house shall be greater than that 
of the former, saith the lord of hosts : and in this place 

WILL I GIVE PEACE, SAITH THE LoRD OF HOSTS. Haggwl H. 9. 

nPHE sermon preached last Sunday was intended to set 
-^ before you the exciting events which preceded the 
"embodying" of this church, and so was a preparation 
for the interesting commemorative exercises in which 
we are this day to take part. You will remember that 
for exactly one year, — that is, from November, 1636, to 
November, 1637, — the Rev. John Wheelwright labored 
with the " Chappel of Ease " which was gathered in this 
place. Then when Wheelwright and his friends were 
banished, and many others had gone with them into vol- 
untary exile, it was as though no band of worshippers 
had ever come together here to listen to the " Word " 
and to join in singing the sacred psalms. The church 
at the Mount was effectually abolished. And we hear 
nothing of a concerted movement to gather again a 
church till the 16th of September, 1639. For a year 
and ten months no sufficient number of the inhabitants 
felt enough in heart to attempt a new organization. 
The natural leaders of the people were gone, and those 
of the liberal party who remained were sullen and 
resentful. 



34 THE cnuRcn of statesmen. 

It is not to be supposed, however, that there was 
entire stagnation at the Mount. During this time there 
was a great shifting of population and a great change 
in the proprietorship of lands. The banished and the 
exiled were selling their estates as rapidly as they could 
to those pressing this way from Boston and from over 
sea. Coddington's lands were bought at a bargain by 
Capt. William Tyng, a Boston merchant, who sold them 
over again ; and John Wheelwright disposed of his " great 
possessions " at a sacrifice we may well believe. But the 
new influx mingling with the ''"' remnant " infused into 
the settlement a more vig-orous life. These later immi- 
grants, some of whom most likely were passengers in 
" the great store of ships " which arrived at Boston in 
1638, had no vital interest in the recent controversy, 
and were prepared to go forward in the course usual 
with prospering plantations. 



FIEST CHURCH GATHERED. 

So on Monday, the 16th day of September, 1639, the 
inhabitants of the Mount assembled to enter solemnly 
into new church relations.^ The enterprise, however, has 

1 The Eev. Mr. Hancock in his sermons preached "Sept. 16, 1739, on com- 
pleting the first century since the gathering of " the First Church, is very careful 
to state explicitly several times that our fathers were " embodied in a church- 
state here this day an hundred years ago." Then in a note he furthermore 
says, "The church was gathered on Monday, Sept. IG, 1639." It is some con- 
firmation of this, were it needed, that "Sept. 16, 1639, was Monday," as Dr. 
George E. Ellis assures me. When Mr. Hancock wrote his sermons he had in 
his possession our oldest book of records, now lost. After amending a later 
record by writing "16" where some one had written "Sept. 17," he gives a 
short account of the renewal of the covenant at the centennial anniversary 



FIRST CHUECH GATHERED. 35 

a look as though it were suddenly conceived, as though 
indeed it had been talked over " after meeting " in Bos- 
ton the day before, and that then on the spur of the 
moment ministers Tompson and Flynt had come to the 
determination that the almost shepherdless sheep of this 
pasture should forthwith be more conveniently provided 
for. These two ministers were peculiarly fitted to or- 
ganize a church here. Mr. William TomjDson was then 
a recent arrival in the colony. He shared none of the 
bitterness toward liberals which had been harbored by 
his brother ministers in the antinomian conflict, and was 
prepared to act the pacificator in a kindly and charitable 
spirit. His companion, Mr. Henry Flynt, was by disposi- 
tion and open confession even more delicately adapted to 
the situation. He was himself of the liberal party, and at 
that very time was under censure for signing the petition 
in behalf of Wheelwright. It was at the call of such 
sympathetic leadership that the inhabitants of the Mount 
came together once more to form a church of their own. 
They were all there, men and women, their profound in- 
terest in the occasion appearing in their solemn deport- 
ment and subdued conversation. But not many of them 
then entered into church relations. Seven had come to 
be considered about the proper number with which to 
begin a church. And so only six, with the two ministers, 
actively participated in the important work. These six, 
— George Rose, Stephen Kinsley, John Dassett, William 

"on September 16th, being the Lord's day, 1739," ending with these words: 
" See Ch. Govt, among ye Records of this Church." That covenant now exists 
only in the copy he printed with his centennial discourses. Add ten days to 
change from old to new style would make September 26 the proper date of our 
anniversary. 



36 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

Potter, Martin Saunders the tavern-keeper, and Gregory 
Belcher, — new men mostly and small farmers, separated 
themselves from the rest of the congregation as those 
on the whole most free in their conscience and best 
fitted by their orthodoxy to begin so weighty a busi- 
ness. Then, as was the fashion, they confessed their 
sins one to another, made profession of their faith, were 
consecrated by prayer, and in right brotherly way stood 
up before the assembly and gave one another in solemn 
covenant the hand of fellowship. 

After this manner was the church founded. It should 
have been an occasion of pious gladness, but there is to 
be detected running through the proceedings a feeling of 
constraint. In the covenant not only do they designate 
themselves by such usual phrases as " poor unworthy 
creatures," but they seem really troubled about '' all the 
remnants of anti-Christian pollution wherein sometimes 
we have walked." They were trying, some of them, to 
be properly sorry for their heresies, and to feel a due 
amount of contrition. This was notably the case with 
minister Flynt, who could not be brought to acknowledge 
his error till some eight months later than this. With- 
out doubt there were many in that assembly who, like 
him, were straining their conscience to conclude they had 
been in the wrong, and to bring themselves into agree- 
ment with the prevailing theology. These were in suffi- 
cient numbers, notwithstanding recent additions, to give 
tone to the proceedings and character to the new-formed 
church. It was in their minds, also, that the loss of their 
chief men was a sad blow to the prosperity of the settle- 
ment. Winthrop unconsciously draws attention to this. 



FIEST MINISTERS AND DEACONS. 37 

He and others, when it was first proposed to establish an 
independent church at the Mount, were loath to give any 
encouragement because so many " chief men " would be 
withdrawn from Boston. Now, in writing of the found- 
ing of our church in this September of 1639, he puts 
down not a word about " chief men," but only that 
" many poor men " petitioned to have a church. What 
is done at the Mount is of so little concern now to Boston 
that Winthrop does not remember accurately the day 
when the church was gathered, nor the day when Tompson 
was ordained. 



FIRST MINISTERS AND DEACONS. 

Accepting the Rev. John Hancock for best authority 
(he was very careful what he wrote, and had before 
him Teacher Flynt's record), we find that Tompson 
was ordained pastor eight days after the church was 
gathered ; that is, Tuesday, the 24th of September, 
1639. Who the elders officiating at this ordination 
were we do not know ; but whoever they were they 
would not at the same time ordain Henry Flynt as 
teacher. He had not made his submission yet. But 
the grave, conscientious young man (he was now about 
thirty-two years old) at last avowed that he would peti- 
tion to have his name blotted out from the paper writ- 
ten in defence of Wheelwright; and so, on the 17th 
of March following, he too was set over this church as 
one of its ministers. His petition was granted by the 
court the same day — May 13, 1640 — it granted the 
inhabitants of the Mount liberty to incorporate them- 



38 THE cnuRcn of statesmen. 

selves as the town of Braintree. I cannot but think 
it was similarity of belief which drew Henry Flynt to 
the Mount. He was still liberal for all his recanta- 
tion ; the broad mind and the tolerant spirit were 
there, however pious his submission. Thus the church 
continued to be an undogmatic, a progressive congre- 
gation, with one minister, at least, entirely sympathetic. 
Evidence of this I seem to see in the first choice for 
deacon of Samuel Bass, who had been fined five pounds 
" for contempt " about the time of the banishment of 
Wheelwright ; ^ in " the desire of the church of Christ 
at Mount "Wollaston that Alexander Winchester,"^ Mr. 
Vane's man, be dismissed from Boston church for their 
help also in the ofiice of deacon ; and in the fact that 
some of Mount Wollaston continued to " receive " at 
Boston, as though affairs here were not entirely satis- 
factory to them.^ Mr. Tompson may have been just 
as liberal-minded as his colleague, but I speak espe- 
cially of Mr. Flynt because he sustained a closer and 
more constant relation with our church. The country 
generally seemed to conclude that one minister was 
enough for us, and made three several attempts to 
divert our pastor to other duties. The ministers of 
the colony, in prayerful session, selected him and an- 
other to journey to Virginia and supply the means of 
grace to such as could not find it in the ministrations 
of the Church of England. He preached with power 
and influenced many ; but the " Old Dominion " soon 

^ Records of the General Court, Dec. 4, 1638. 

2 Boston First Church Records, July 12, 1640. 

8 LecMord's Plaine Dealing, p. 41, and note by J. II. Trumbull. 



FIRST MINISTERS AND DEACONS. 39 

drove him out, being as intolerant of Puritans as 
Massachusetts was of Episcopalians. It might be in- 
teresting to speculate upon the probable course of the 
history of Virginia if the independency and moral ear- 
nestness of the New England churches had obtained at 
that time a strong and permanent hold upon the hearts of 
the people there. But I must not be tempted aside ; I 
would only interject the remark that thus early Brain- 
tree began to regard Southern affairs. Hardly had 
Tompson returned from this missionary journey when 
he was chosen to accompany the army in the threat- 
ened war with the Narragansetts. He was to blow a 
silver trumpet before the host, and preach the word to 
them. Of " tall, comely presence," quite military look- 
ing, and also quite brave and obedient to all calls of 
duty, he would have acquitted himself well. But the 
war did not break out, and he returned to his pastoral 
charge. Then in 1648 he was invited to settle over 
the churcli Wheelwright had founded in Exeter, N. H. 
That gentleman, fearing the advancing power of the 
Massachusetts government, had fled to Wells. The offer 
made to Tompson was liberal, — thirty pounds a year, 
the profits of the town saw-mill, and the use of the 
house and land bought of Wheelwright. But Tompson 
resisted the temptation. What led those of Exeter, 
one wonders, to send for Tompson ? Was it because 
of what friends here wrote to the former dwellers at 
the Mount there ? Did they recommend him as a wor- 
thy successor of Wheelwright ? We can only guess ; 
at all events, the church in Braintree prospered under 
the ministration of its pastor and teacher, and all its 



40 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

aspirations, liberal or other, seemed satisfied. These 
ministers passed away, — Tompson in 1666, Flynt in 
1668, — leaving behind thera the sweet remembrance of 
their gravity, integrity, purity, and holiness. Of their 
wives the least to be said is that they bequeathed to 
this parish the names Abigail and Dorothy, which since 
have been so highly honored. 

STILL "the sour LEVEN OF THOSE SINFUL OPINIONS." 

A liberal party vigorously manifested itself in the 
choice for successors of its first ministers. This party 
was for calling the Rev. Josiah Flynt, son of their late 
lamented teacher. Opposition was made on the ground 
that the candidate had uttered " divers dangerous het- 
erodoxies, delivered, and that without caution, in his 
public preaching." Many meetings were had about it, 
with " very uncomfortable debates " and " awful divi- 
sions." The liberals so far prevailed as to elect Mr. 
Flynt and a Mr. Bulkeley ; but as the ballot was not 
single and the quarrelling had been bitter, neither 
would accept, and for four years the distracted church 
continued without a settled minister. " The disorders 
among us," wrote one of our members on a subsequent 
occasion, " call for tears and lamentations, rather than 
to be remembered." This is very true ; and they are 
mentioned now only to make it plain that in this 
early period of our church's history there was no lack 
of mental vigor and the manifestation of an indepen- 
dent spirit. The very earnestness of the dispute and 
its long continuance is evidence that these forefathers 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE DESCRIBED. 41 

of ours had strong convictions. Their religion was a 
vital thing to them, and entirely possessed their hearts 
and minds. Characteristic of the church from the earli- 
est times has been its stubborn strength, its faithful- 
ness to its ideals, its self-reliance, its almost rude 
directness. These founders of our town were no lovers 
of smooth words and compromises. " Poor men " they 
might be in estate, but without question they were 
rich in mental power and tenacious moral strength. 
They stand forth as marked examples of the plain, 
blunt, serious, conscientious English Puritan, of the tol- 
erant Miltonic sort, sure of his ground, vigorous in the 
defence of it, yet with face toward the larger view and 
broader principle. And in the history of this church, 
almost typical in its natural gradations, is the develop- 
ment of religious belief and moral conviction through 
wider statements and more liberal tendencies. 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE DESCRIBED. 

The scene of these earlier religious adjustments was 
the first meeting-house built by the settlers, the square 
stone structure which was situated in the middle of what 
is now Hancock Street, a little to the north of its junc- 
tion with Canal Street. There, on the tongue of land 
which rose above the Town River swamps to the east and 
west of it, the little building was conspicuous. I ima- 
gine it was in shape like the old Hingham church, — a 
platform rising from the apex of the roof, on which at 
a later day swung a bell. Near the church, and erected 
almost as early, were the schoolhouse and the tavern, in- 



42 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

stitutions having effects how opposite ! This place was 
indeed the town centre, with its little square, or common. 
The main road from Plymouth to Boston ran through it, 
dividing when it came to the meeting-house, passing by 
each end of it and uniting again just above the " meeting- 
house bridge " over the Town-River. The Webb house in 
which Mr. Jones now lives in the " hollow " is the only 
one left of those which formerly stood near the meeting- 
house in the town square. It was certainly built before 
the year 1700, it may even have been occupied by Parson 
Tompson, and faced toward the square on the line of 
the road as it diverged to the eastward to go around the 
meeting-house. 

The church was entered by a door at the east end, and 
very likely by another at the west end. The pulpit, as 
I conjecture, was situated against the south wall, and 
on either side of it running entirely around the building 
were galleries. In front of the pulpit were the deacons' 
seats, where Samuel Bass, Richard Brackett, Benjamin 
Saville, and other worthies "held out the box" to receive 
the regular Sunday contribution as the congregation 
flocked up and filed past. The seats for the worshippers 
were at first plain, rude benches in two rows, — the women 
occupying one row, the men the other. There was also 
the women's gallery and the men's gallery. The " seat- 
ing the meeting-house," — that is, the assigning to per- 
sons the sixteen or eighteen inches of plank they were 
to occupy for the year, — was always a delicate task, and 
sometimes occasioned heart-burnings. Social rank and 
moral worth and age were generally considered, but 
money could not buy the best places as now. Free seats 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE DESCRIBED. 43 

and a certain equality before the Lord was the accepted 
rule. The pew system was introduced the 15th of Janu- 
ary, 1700 (to be precise). Then Capt. John Wilson was 
granted liberty to make a pew in some convenient place. 
He built his little pen in the back part of the meeting- 
house against the wall; then Minister Fiske built his by 
the east window; next, Col. Edmund Quincy built his 
by the side of Mr. Wilson's. And so they added pew 
to pew, till the walls of the church all around were pos- 
sessed by them. Only one part of the walls had neither 
gallery nor pew against it. This was the space above 
the pulpit. Then it was voted (I think it is with re- 
gard to this earliest church) that a certain prominent 
personage " might build him a pew over the pulpit, pro- 
vided he so builds as not to darken the pulpit." The 
late Josiah Quincy, in quoting this vote, wrote, — 

" A friend of mine here suggests that, as a figure of speech, 
pews may now be said to be built over the pulpit with some 
frequency, and regrets that the good divines of the town, whose 
life-long sway was arbitrary and unquestioned, did not have the 
wit to prevent that perilous permission. For notwithstanding 
the wholesome caution of the old record, it has been found im- 
possible ' not to darken the pulpit ' when the pews are placed 
above it." 

Let the picture of that diminutive stone meeting- 
house, as I have outlined it, take form in your minds. 
Imagine it filled with your ancestors, with those whose 
dust sanctifies the little cemetery yonder, the memory of 
whose sterling virtues is to us a sacred possession. How 
plain the interior ! — no color, no art, no large breadths 
of space ; a place rude in its simplicity. And how de- 



44 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

void of art, also, the Sunday's service ! — a long prayer, 
a long sermon, and the psalms slowly lined out, and 
sung tunelessly almost.^ Yet how serious the faces of 
the worshippers ; how lit up with strong, noble rever- 
ence ! Along the fore-seats sat the oldest among them. 
" I shall never forget," wrote John Adams of a period 
later than this, '' the rows of venerable heads ranged 
along those front benches which, as a young fellow, I 
used to gaze upon." They bowed, all of them, — young 
and old together, — before the Lord, and the thought 
of His presence made their poor surroundings glorious. 
How changed their attitude, however, during those 
stormy meetings when " some were for Paul and some 
for Apollos " ! Lieut. Edmund Quincy presiding in the 
little pulpit is hardly able to keep the excited gathering 
in order. A vigorous speaker will not have " hetero- 
dox" Flynt on any account, and his words are greeted 
with ready applause by some others like-minded. Cap- 
tain Brackett and Deacon Bass and Goodman Faxon 
are all up at once, uttering themselves in defence of 
the right of a man to think for himself, and on the im- 
portance of personal righteousness. And so the battle 
goes on, and by it the Lord's work is done as effectu- 
ally as in the Sunday worship. Truth emerges from 
the tumult, and peace attends upon the more rational 
convictions. There is no such trouble again, no " awful 
divisions" over charges of "heterodoxy." The liberal- 
izing element, potent in the forming of the church, is 

1 As late as "May 26, 1723, Major Quincy was fairly and clearly chosen 
by written votes to the office of tuning the Psalm in our assemblies for public 
worship." — " 1761, March 2d, Voted to sing Dr. Watts's hymns and spiritual 
sonors on Sacramental occasions." 



A CONGREGATION FORMED AT THE "SOUTH END." 45 

potent still, and the congregation as a body drifts 
complacently away from the stern continent of Calvin- 
istic doctrine. When next there is earnest discussion 
of dogma, it is manifest that virtuall}'" the entire con- 
gregation is with the minister in his most liberal and 
independent ideas. 

In the period we are now considering, the congrega- 
tion eventually so " moderated their spirits " that they 
acquiesced when the County Court in November, 1671, 
interfered, where so many other means had failed, and 
sent " Mr. Moses Fiske to improve his labors in preach- 
ing the word at Braintry, until the church there agree 
to obtain supply." This proved a quite fortunate as- 
sumption, as at the close of his first Sunday of service 
" about twenty of the brethren came to visit at Mr. 
Flynt's, manifesting in the name of the church their 
ready acceptance of what the court had done ; " and 
two months later " the church, by their messengers," 
as Mr. Fiske records, " did jointly and unanimously 
desire my settlement amongst them. . . . The day of 
my solemn espousals to this church and congregation " 
was the 11th of September, 1672. He was then thirty 
years old, and for a period of thirty-six years "was 
zealously diligent for God and the good of men, — one 
who thought no labor, cost, or suffering too dear a 
price for the good of his people." 

A CONGREGATION FORMED AT THE " SOUTH END." 

It was during his pastorate that the town was 
divided into the north and south precincts. Not with- 



46 THE CHtJRCH OF STATESMEN. 

out calling " forth a great deal of human nature " was 
this accomplished. Those who lived far away in the 
south part of the town were becoming painfully conscious 
that it was a long distance to "meeting, and through 
such bad ways, whereby the Lord's day, which is a day 
of rest, was to them a day of labor rather." Reasona- 
bly enough, they asked that a new and larger edifice be 
built at a point more central. The old stone meeting- 
house was at this time much out of repair, and very 
plainly also it could not adequately accommodate the 
growing parish. Accordingly, at a town-meeting in 
1695 it was "voted that a new meeting-house should 
be erected." " This," writes Mr. C. F. Adams the 
younger, " did not meet the views of old Col. Ed- 
mund Quincy and others who lived in the northern 
limits ; consequently they went to work to prevent any- 
thing being done at all, and at a private meeting held 
at Colonel Quincy's they 'did agree among themselves 
to shingle the old house, pretending to be at the whole 
charge themselves.' But, none the less, ' several pounds 
were afterwards gathered by a rate upon the whole 
town.' " Then they of the south began to talk about 
organizing a separate church. This project was also 
opposed, on the ground that the burden of paying 
Minister Fiske his eighty or ninety pounds a year 
would fall upon a reduced number in the north. So 
north and south had "much sinful discourse" between 
them, and " some misapprehension about church disci- 
pline." However, on the second day of May, 1706, 
the frame of a new meeting-house was raised in the 
south part of the town ; and at a town-meeting the 



ADJUSTMENT WITH THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND. 47 

next November it was voted, as gracefully as the cir- 
cumstances would permit, " that as there were two 
meeting-houses erected in this town, the south end 
shall be a congregation by themselves." On the 10th 
of September, 1707, the Rev. Hugh Adams was or- 
dained pastor of the South Church ; but the contention 
over finances was only ended with the death of Mr. 
Fiske, Aug. 10, 1708. 

ADJUSTMENT WITH THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND. 

During the ministry of Mr. Fiske his congregation 
was also agitated over the appearance in town of the 
Church of England. How these " prelatists " got estab- 
lished in this Puritan settlement, whether by immigra- 
tion or by conversion of degenerate Congregationalists, 
it would be interesting to ascertain. We know that 
in Boston a few early appeared in the train of the 
king's officers, and that with the advent of Andros in 
1686 that town was forced to adjust itself to regular 
assemblies of the hated worship. Next to residents of 
Boston, the people here were first among Congregation- 
alists to be called upon to solve the problem of how to 
live with the church which numbered the "martyr king" 
— Charles I. — with the saints, and named all the lead- 
ers of the Puritan revolution as " violent and blood- 
thirsty men." It was a question bristling with ani- 
mosities. The English Church was then foreign to our 
soil and unrecognized by law, yet it claimed the king's 
colonies for the prayer-book and the prelacy. A mem- 
ber of that Church, asking assistance for his fellow- 



48 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

worshippers here, wrote in 1702: ^'Brantry should be 
minded; it is in the heart of New England, and a 
learned and sober man would do great good and en- 
courao;e the other towns to desire the like. If the 
Church can be settled in New England it pulls up 
schisms in America by the root, that being the foun- 
tain that supplies, with infectious streams, the rest of 
America." The schismatics of " Brantry " were not at 
all eager to be pulled up. On the contrary, they were 
rather strongly inclined to do some uprooting them- 
selves. However, in spite of their longings they really 
did treat the members of the Church of England hand- 
somely. According to Puritan law, these prelatists as 
well as all others were taxed for the support of the 
Puritan churches, and were required to attend the stated 
meetings of them when they had no services of their 
own. But how charitably this church dealt with them 
let the Rev. John Hancock tell : — 

" I verily think the conduct of this church and congregation 
towards our brethren of the Church of England has been Chris- 
tian and exemplary. I will mention several instances of it to 
the glory of God and their praise. In the vacancy before the 
Rev. Mr. Miller received holy orders for this place, this church 
admitted to their communion all such members of the Church 
of England as desired to have occasional communion with us, 
and allowed them what posture of devotion they pleased, and 
they used to receive the sacrament standing. . . . This parish, 
upon Mr. Miller's coming, reimbursed to the declared members 
of the Church of England their proportion of the charge of my 
settlement, and generously excused them from any further pay- 
ments towards my support." 




Hancock's meeting-house, as altered in 1805. 



EAST. — 60 feet. 



2. 












0--0 


~?3 
^1 





PULPIT. 


0-0 


1 < " 


7: 

-<— 

'S.I' 


- 


w._ 








i- 








* ' 




ih 


Deacons' Seat. 


Table. 
















Men's Seats. 




Women's 


Seats. 










Benjamin 
Webb. 




2 
John 
Mills. 








1 1 






1 


John 
Ba.\ter. 




Nnt 
BraL 


LITl 


















1 1 






1 


Se^th 


4 
William 














Samuel 


^5^ 


al. 






1 1 






1 






bp.a 


' 































1 








Ebenezer 
Field. 




4 
Pelatiah 
Rawson. 






1 








Thomas 
Glover. 


Benjamin 
Beal. 


Ebenezer 
Adams. 


.Samuel 
Penui- 






^To 


Men' 


Gallery. 






il 




"1.1 


»X'3 


























1 


1 




















Benjamin 
Baxter. 




Edmund 
Ouincy. 

4 

Pain. 
Jr. 


i 


1 










1 


1 

1 


Ebenezer 

Niithtin- 

LJale. 


Moses 

Belcher. 

Jr. 


Samuel 
Savel. 




1 








To ^\■omen's 


Gallery. | 




•5 '5 

HOI 


3 4J 


I'Jter 
Adams. 


>E 


- 



FRONT DOOR. 



pe' 



Ground Floor as it was wlien Church was dedicated iu 1732. Numbers indicate valuation lots, — " Lot i, ei^ht 
ws, at ^25 ; lot 2, twelve, at £1$ each," etc. 






MEETING-HOUSES LESS THAN MEN. 49 

It gives me pleasure to quote these words of the Rev. 
Mr. Hancock, for they clearly testify to the tolerant 
spirit which even at that early day prevailed here. 
Indeed, we can say that no single act of persecution 
for opinion's sake stains our history. Is this not owing 
in some measure to the words and example of Wheel- 
wright ; to the inclination toward what is broad and 
humane wrought by his labors ? 

MEETING-HOUSES LESS THAN MEN. 

This same Mr. Hancock who thus praises toleration 
and Christian courtesy, was himself an exponent and 
example of brotherly kindness and charity and what- 
ever is most substantial in religion. In our chronology 
he follows the faithful Joseph Marsh, who was installed 
May 18, 1709, and in a spiritual succession ranks with 
the best of our ministers. Ordained May 2, 1726, he 
was the last pastor to lead the devotions of this church 
in the old meeting-house. Its leaks and fissures admit- 
ting in winter's storms cartloads of snow, were no more 
to be " repaired." A new church was at last to be built. 
The site first proposed was •' at Colonel Quincy's gate ; " 
then where the old meeting-house stood; but it was de- 
cided eventually to place it "at the ten milestone, or 
near unto it." This was exactly fixed "on the train- 
ing-field" a little to the south of the "ten milestone." 

Mr. Hancock thought the compassing a new house 
of worship was the great achievement of his ministry. 
When he records its dedication, Oct. 8, 1732, he spon- 
taneously breaks forth into praises in the sonorous Latin 



50 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

speech. As it stood there on the training-field, fair and 
beautiful in his eyes, he felt it to be a glorious monu- 
ment of the energy of his people, destined to win for 
them great respect and influence. But however notable 
that event, its influence in shaping the destiny and es- 
tablishing the character of this society was as nothing 
compared with two other happenings seemingly ordinary 
enough. These two items stand in his record of bap- 
tisms : "John, son of John Adams, Oct. 26, 1735," and 
"John Hancock, my son, Jan. 16, 1736-7." Proud as 
a father, no doubt, he was on the latter occasion ; but 
proud for his church he might well have been on both 
occasions. The son of the deacon and the son of the 
minister were to bring more fame to First Church 
and add more to its character and influence than any 
temple of wood or stone, however spacious and costly. 
How true it is that evermore it is not the material 
environment but the spirit which emanates from man 
or God, — the truth, the patriotism, the faith, the in- 
tegrity, — which establishes the fame of all institutions, 
and makes effectual all the noble power of them ! Here- 
tofore, through many years, children of this church had 
become notable. The Quincy family especially, in every 
generation since the first Edmund came from England 
in 1633, had given to the country magistrates, military 
officers, representatives, judges. The church had a 
share in their fame and the unfailing assistance of 
their wealth and wisdom. Now with these were to be 
enrolled John Hancock, the liberal patriot and honora- 
ble Governor, and John Adams, the Puritan statesman 
of the Revolution, anticipating Independence with Puri- 




ABIGAIL ADAMS, 
{Mrs. yo/in Adams.) 

1800. 
AGED 56. 




JOHN ADAMS, 
1800. 

AGED 65. 



^' oisr fame's eternall bead-roll." 51 

tan conscience, and advocating it with Puritan persist- 
ence; the Chief Magistrate — 

' ' Of soul sincere, 
In action faitliful and in honor clear ; 
Who broke no promise, served no private end." 

He was such a man as the best traditions and great prin- 
ciples of our early New England life tended to make. 
This church proudly claims him ; perceives his original 
mental force, his moral independence and fervor, to be 
consonant with its centuries of teaching. 



" oisr fame's eternall bead-roll." 

How many other statesmen, all after this same order, 
have been born to us ! From the unbroken and ascend- 
ing line of the Quincys still have issued men prominent 
in public life who belonged to us, though baptized, it may 
be, in the metropolis which with this place they honored 
as their home. John Quincy, one of the most active men 
in colonial affairs, for many years Speaker of the House 
and Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment, was a life-long mem- 
ber of this church, and for a quarter of a century or more 
the favorite presiding officer of parish meetings. And 
who so constant an attendant upon the services of this 
church, all through the long months of his summer so- 
journ among us, as "Boston's Great Mayor" and repre- 
sentative to Congress, Josiah Quincy ? His tall manly 
form and reverent aspect are still clear in the minds of 
many of this congregation. Other public and notable 
men you will call to remembrance, — Thomas Greenleaf, 
Richard Cranch, — yet I must not stop to name them. 



52 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

but hurry on to speak of him, the son of a President and 
President himself, whose character and achievements are 
of that high moral and intellectual order which in any 
age would render him illustrious. For record of his 
earliest connection with this church I resort again to the 
time-worn annals of the ministers. This time the writ- 
ing is that of old Parson Wibird, and under the headline 
"Baptisms, 1767," reads, " Jn° Quincy, S. Jn° Adams, 
July 12." The child John Quincy Adams, schooled and 
trained into manhood in a remarkably practical and lib- 
eral fashion, shows himself more essentially a Puritan 
than even his father. His piety, his devotion to truth 
and right, his indomitable will, all mark him as a genuine 
descendant of those who surrendered all to live in accord 
with the spiritual intent and spiritual principles of the 
universe. The broad New England church in the world 
of affairs never had truer representative. His high aims, 
and methods as high, exalted the office of President ; and 
later he was the " old man eloquent," whose voice to his 
last hour rang clear and unfaltering in defence of liberty 
and human rights. For all his great renown and high 
public station, his name is frequently to be met with in 
our church records on committees appointed to represent 
the congregation at Unitarian conventions and instal- 
lations of ministers. Entirely one with this society 
in spirit, he also identified himself with its practical 
administrations. 

And still the line stretches out with no abatement in 
mental ability or moral force. His son, Charles Francis 
Adams, so lately gathered to his fathers and mourned by 
a nation which appreciates in constantly increasing degree 



" ON fame's eternall bead-roll." 53 

bis fine and forceful character and measureless services, 
was a statesman by birth and acquirements. Every pub- 
lic position to which he was elevated he honored ; and we 
do not need to remind you how as Minister to England 
during the war for the Union his clear intelligence and 
resolute moral strength prevented battles, converted a 
formidable foe to a friend, and in calm diplomatic coun- 
cils did as much to preserve this nation as did Grant in 
the rough open field of war. This great man also belongs 
to us ; proudly we claim him as we claim his fathers, — 
ours by blood and preference. " He loved to come here. 
He loved to frequent the house of God always. It was 
his never-failing weekly resort. Religion was not merely 
the daily practice of his home, — it was the centre of 
his life." ^ 

But I have said enough ; more than is needful I have 
named of those " on Fame's eternall bead-roll," to demon- 
strate the distinctive character of this church among even 
New England churches. It is The Church of States- 
men, — every man of them (it is the luminous fact to be 
cherished) magnanimous, sincere, and genuine, and illus- 
trating in the face of the world the eternal principles 
of the Christian religion here taught and reverenced. 
To their influence and fame it is owing that this church 
is known throughout the land, and that pilgrimages are 
made to it. To their influence, do I say ? But not to 
theirs alone. Who can resist the thought that its vir- 
tuous and noble women, — Mrs. Abigail Adams, Mrs. 
John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, Miss 

^ Dr. William Everett, " Address in Commemoration of the Life and Ser- 
vices of Charles Francis Adams." 



54 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

Eliza Susan Quincy, — add a graciousness to that dis- 
tinction and make it entirely beautiful in character? 

This peculiarity of our church has a recognition of long 
standing. Josiah Quincy, in his " Figures of the Past," 
writes, — 

" An air of respectful deference to John Adams seemed to 
pervade the building. The ministers brought their best sermons 
when they came to exchange, and had a certain consciousness 
in their manner as if officiating before royalty. The medley of 
stringed and wind instruments in the gallery, — a survival of 
the sacred trumpets and shaums mentioned by King David, — 
seemed to the imagination of a child to be making discord 
together in honor of the venerable chief who was the centre 
of interest." 

But however admired and reverenced, these great men 
were still Puritans in their simplicity and entire submis- 
sion to the Highest. They venerated their little village 
church and its worship. Called by their official duties to 
sojourn in the great cities of Europe, they were witnesses 
of the pageantry of courts in which no ceremony was left 
out ; they mingled with the brilliant concourse which 
thronged the gay salons ; they listened to the majestic 
harmonies in the magnificent cathedrals of England and 
the Continent, — and yet they returned with content, and 
with an even increased devotion, to the plain ordinances 
and unadorned principles of their fathers. In their loy- 
alty, as well as their fame, they honored the Church of 
Christ in this place. When travelling in Spain, John 
Adams forbore to bow before a shrine reverently shown 
him, containing some sacred ndics. The shocked custo- 
dian inquired in French of the archbishop who was doing 




Jc^ u:yfi o^^^^ca^i-oy 



FIRST CHURCH PROGRESSIVE STILL. 65 

the honors of the occasion, " Is not the gentleman a 
Christian?" "Yes," answered the prelate, "in his own 
way." These honored men of our communion, what- 
ever the place they were in, or the pomp by which they 
were surrounded, were Christians in their own way, — 
the way they were taught here in this church and 

" At that best academe, a mother's knee." 
FIRST CHURCH PROGRESSIVE STILL. 

It might easily be taken for granted that a church 
which nurtured men and women so thoughtful and 
broadly intelligent would dispense no narrow belief ; 
and, in truth, the slightest investigation shows that in 
this regard it was singular among even New England 
churches. The liberal spirit so early interfused appears 
in the utterance of every one of its greatest preachers. 
The sermons of the Rev. John Hancock written to com- 
memorate the close of the first century of our church's 
history, are remarkable for what he deliberately does 
not say. In them there is entire absence of Calvinistic 
dogma. Already the cruder phases of Puritanism had 
been discarded. It was during his ministry, too, that 
" some persons of a sober life and good conversation sig- 
nified their unwillingness to join in full communion with 
the church, unless they may be admitted to it without 
making a public relation of their spiritual experiences, 
which (they say) the church has no warrant in the word 
of God to require." So a " great majority " voted they 
would not " any more insist upon the making a rela- 
tion as a necessary form of full communion." But it is 



56 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

when we come to the Rev. Lemuel Briant that we find 
liberalism self-conscious and aggressive. This minister, 
a young man of twenty-four when he succeeded Mr. 
Hancock in the September of 1745, is characterized as 
intellectually a remarkable man. Certainly he was as 
writer and preacher brilliant, incisive, independent, and 
possessing little regard for conventionalities. " Had he 
lived he might have held his ground, and succeeded in 
advancing by one long stride the tardy progress of liberal 
Christianity in Massachusetts." He neglected to teach 
the children of his parish the catechism, preferring plain 
Scripture ; he was guilty, said his opponents, of " the 
absurdity and blasphemy of substituting the personal 
righteousness of men in the room of the surety-righteous- 
ness of Christ ; " he praised moral virtue ; he protested 
against such interpretation of the Bible as affronted 
human reason. For this he was called " Socinian " and 
"Armenian," and a council of sister churches was sum- 
moned to try him. With an independence almost un- 
heard of, he slighted the council and would not go near 
it. But as it declared there existed grounds for the com- 
plaints against him, a committee of his own church was 
appointed to consider the matter. Col. John Quincy was 
at the head of this committee, and it reported a series of 
resolutions which may fairly be regarded as remarkable 
for the times. They were adopted by almost the entire 
church, the few " aggrieved brethren " seeming to be 
quite pacified. In these resolutions the people defended 
their pastor's use of "pure Scripture" instead of the cate- 
chism ; and they honored the right of private judgment, 
commending "Mr. Briant for the pains he took to pro- 




JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 
1796. 

AGED 29. 



MELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON 




LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS, 
{Mrs. y. ^. Adams.) 

1795. 

AGED 21. 



HELIOTVPe PRINTING CO., BOSTON. 



FIRST CHURCH PROGRESSIVE STILL. 57 

mote a free and impartial examination into all articles 
of our holy religion, so that all may judge even of them- 
selves what is right." 

Upon such broad foundation this church placed itself 
seventy years before Channing preached the famous Bal- 
timore sermon, which precipitated the separation of the 
Unitarian churches from the main body of Congregation- 
alists. In principle it was a Unitarian church long be- 
fore the liberal aspirations of New England had taken 
definite shape and name. To this John Adams gives his 
testimony. He was a growing lad during the contro- 
versy over the beliefs of Mr. Briant, and its effect upon 
himself was manifest in his rejection of the ministry as 
a profession ; as he wrote, " the reason of my quitting 
the divinity was my opinion concerning some disputed 
points." Through all the phases of a developing liberal 
Christianity he with vigorous thinking then passed, and 
many fellow-parishioners with him; so that in 1815, when 
at last the Unitarian outbreak occurred, he could write 
as follows to Dr. Morse of Charlestown, who had sent him 
a pamphlet setting forth the new opinions : — 

" I thank you for your favor of the 10th and the pamphlet 
enclosed, entitled 'American Unitarianism.' I have turned over 
its leaves and find nothing that was not familiarly known to me. 
In the preface, Unitarianism is represented as only thirty years 
old in New England. I can testify as a witness to its old age. 
Sixty-five years ago my own minister, the Rev. Lemuel Briant, 
Dr. Jonathan Mayhew of the West Church in Boston, the Rev. Mr. 
Steele of Hingham, the Rev. John Brown of Cohasset, and per- 
haps equal to all, if not above all, the Rev. Mr. Gay of Hingham, 
were Unitarians. Among the laity how many could I name, — 
lawyers, physicians, tradesmen, farmers ! But at present I will 



58 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

name only one, — Richard Cranch, a man who had studied 
divinity, and Jewish and Christian antiquities, more than any 
clergyman now existing in New England." 

The minister who followed Mr. Briant may have been 
as liberal, but he was not at all aggressive in his religious 
or other opinions.-^ In the company of the Rev. Anthony 
Wibird '• something is to be learned of human nature, 
human life, love, courtship, marriage," wrote the stirring 
and ambitious John Adams at twenty-two ; " but his 
opinion out " of these things " is not very valuable. His 
soul is lost in a dronish effeminacy." Somewhat later 
in 1775, Boston then being besieged by the patriots, 
Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, " I could not bear 
to hear our inanimate old bachelor. Mrs. Cranch and I 
took our chaise and went to hear Mr. Haven of Dedham ; 
and we had no occasion to repent our eleven miles ride." 
But however the " inanimate old bachelor " whose opin- 
ions were chiefly valuable as they regarded '• courtship 
and marriage " might drone away, his church continued 
to expand in thought and to gain clearer conceptions of 
"moral virtue." In a marked degree it was a church 
whose power was in its pews, and thus a good example of 

^ 1755, Feb. 5. We went to Braintree, joined in the ordination Council. 
Mr. Wibird the candidate, having (upon examination of his principles, par- 
ticularly about the Deity of Christ, the satisfaction he made to the justice of 
God for the sins of men, original sin, and the influence of the spirit of God, 
and our justifying righteousness before God) given satisfaction to the Council, 
they voted to proceed to his ordination. Eev. Mr. Langdon of Portsmouth 
began with prayer ; Rev. Mr. Appleton, who was chosen member of the Council 
upon the venerable Mr. Xiles declining it, preached from Levi. x. 3. The 
Rev. ^Ir. Gay of Hingham being chosen upon Mr. Niles declining it, gave the 
charge ; and I being chosen gave the right hand of fellowship. — MSS. Record 
of Rev. Mr. Dunbar of Sloughlon, now Canton. 



"AS IT IS TO THIS DAY." 59 

worshippers after the Congregational order, — a society of 
" the brethren." In diaries and records one discerns how 
alive are these farmers, lawyers, and physicians to facts 
and principles of real religion ; how keen for moral dis- 
tinctions, how impatient of cant. So through the forty- 
five years during which Parson Wibird preached (a man 
" withal of great dignity, and beloved and respected by 
his people," as the Rev. Peter Whitney testifies), the 
church slowly drifted onward upon the stream of rational 
religion toward a world of higher thoughts and nobler 
aspirations. 

"AS IT IS TO THIS DAY." 

By the time Peter Whitney was ordained, the 5th of 
February, 1800, the church was fairly set in this direc- 
tion, and had no changes to make, no controversy to 
disturb it, when Channing's sermon forced the congrega- 
tions of New England to take sides. Good, kind, pleasant- 
spoken Peter Whitney, — there are men and women with 
us still who remember him well, who were baptized by 
him, even married by him. They like to tell of his genial 
humor and plain human ways. The great event of his 
ministry was the dedication of the " Stone Temple " on 
the twelfth day of November, 1828. By the munificence 
of John Adams and the encouragement of his son John 
Quincy Adams was this temple erected " for the public 
worship of God, and for public instruction in the doc- 
trines and duties of the Christian relis-ion." With its 
marble tablets and tomb, " durable as the rocks of their 
native town," it has become a notable monument to their 
services and character. 



60 THE CHUECH OF STATESMEN". 

On the 3d day of June, 1835, the Rev. William Parsons 
Lunt was installed as colleague with Mr. Whitney. A 
melancholy interest attaches to his name, partly on ac- 
count of his pensive and earnest character, but most be- 
cause of his untimely death far from home and friends 
while travelling in the Holy Land. 

" But oh that the thoughtful scholar, — 
His mind at its fullest noon, — 
That the preacher's tongue 
And the poet's song 
Should pass away so soon ! " 

In the sands of Arabian Akaba his dust was interred, — 
how distant from the " tombs of the prophets," his prede- 
cessors, in our burial-place which he was so careful to 
preserve ! Dr. Lunt, always meditating upon the highest 
themes, led his people still on where reason joined with 
reverence showed the way. Famed for scholarship and 
poetic gifts, he is ranked among the ablest of the minis- 
ters of the First Church. His discourse delivered at 
the interment of his venerated parishioner John Quincy 
Adams, is " worthy of a place by the side of any funeral 
oration of ancient or modern times," and his two dis- 
courses written for the Two Hundredth Anniversary of 
this church are remarkable for careful statement, exten- 
sive research, and perspicuity of style. By these and 
other productions of his pen he obtained great renown. 

Mr. John D. Wells was ordained Dr. Lunt's successor 
the 27th of December, 1860. Coming here just on the 
eve of the great Civil War, Mr. Wells threw himself with 
passionate devotion upon the side of the Union, and not 
only inspired his parishioners with patriotic feelings, but 



"AS IT IS TO THIS DAY." 61 

himself enlisted and led the way where actions more 
eloquently spoke. Received with hearty welcome when 
he returned from the front, he once more took up his 
duties among you, and with entire faithfulness performed 
them till failing health obliged him to resign. Your 
manifest affection for him is greater praise than I may 
presume to render. 

For four years before my own installation you were 
without a settled pastor. During that time you listened 
to many preachers. A few of them cannot but be men- 
tioned, — such as Dr. William Everett, whose presence 
with us this day is denied us owing to his severe illness ; 
Dr. A. P. Putnam, who occupied this pulpit for several 
months, and who was invited to remain here perma- 
nently ; and the Rev. E. C. Butler, who twice was urged 
to become the minister of this parish. 

Finally, on the 24th of March, 1880, I was installed 
your minister. I hardly dare confess how hard it has 
been to rightly labor with a " plentiful lack " of self- 
confidence, and how poor the labor seems for the most 
part, now at the end of ten years. But you have con- 
tinued your activities, dispensing a constant charity, 
manifesting an unfailing interest in the advancement of 
pure Christianity and moral reforms. Many, very many 
have passed away from among us; yet we have grown, 
and the promise of the future is inspiring. 

The most memorable event which has occurred amonsr 

O 

you since I have been your minister was the ending of 
the earthly existence of our great fellow-worshipper, the 
Hon. Charles Francis Adams. Qn Tuesday the 23d of 
November, 1886, this church was opened to receive his 



62 THE CHURCH OF STATESMEN. 

remains, and after the solemn and simple service befitting 
the occasion, they were borne hence to be interred in the 
soil he loved so well. Again for a high and solemn pur- 
pose was the church opened the 4th of July, 1887, when 
Dr. William Everett delivered his noble address in com- 
memoration of the life and services of Mr. Adams. Mrs. 
Adams did not long survive her husband ; she too passed 
away full of years and beloved by all. Another notable 
event which may be mentioned is the erection and dedi- 
cation of our chapel a year ago ; and perhaps it is also 
worthy of record that at last this is not the only Uni- 
tarian church within the limits of the ancient town 
of Braintree. October 23, 1887, the present flourishing 
Unitarian society at Wollaston, under the charge of the 
Rev. W. S. Key, was started ; and for a year or more 
the Rev. J. F. Moors, D. D., has been preaching to a very 
vigorous congregation of our faith in Randolph. 

"the conclusion of the whole matter." 

In this pleasant anniversary celebration our interest 
chiefly has been with the past. We have sought to un- 
derstand the vanished times, and make the people of 
them live once more. During these last months, while 
thus looking backward, passing strange to me has seemed 
this show of things. Gone are all those sons of men who 
here toiled and fretted, hoped and aspired. Seven suc- 
cessive generations of them have swept out from the 
unknown, and into the unknown have vanished again. 
The ambitious statesmen, the mother not to be comforted 
in the loss of her child, the passionate patriot, the disso- 




CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, 
1869. 

AGED 62. 



MELtOTVPE PRINTING CO.. BOSTON. 




ABIGAIL BROOKS ADAMS, 

(Mrs. C. F. Adatns.) 

1871. 

AGED 63. 



THE CONCLUSION" OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 63 

lute brawler of the tavern, — those whom hardly a world 
would contentj and those whom a crust satisfied, — have 
disappeared for evermore. Ah, it is pathetic, tragic, not 
to be understood ! All that remains with us is a name, 
and the good they have done. The good they have done! 
It is the remembrance of that which brings us here to- 
day. We are glad to unite in praise of that. We wel- 
come this distinguished point in our church's history to 
praise goodness and all sacrifices for truth. These re- 
main, these virtues of the men and women of the past, — 
a priceless heritage and a ceaseless inspiration. 

And all the good work wrought by them and the fair 
lives of them belong peculiarly to you. Your predeces- 
sors they are, — this church theirs and yours. The same 
names are borne by many of you that were borne by the 
founders of the society. Are you sensible of the signifi- 
cance of that ? Do you realize what it is to be in the 
place of your fathers, and to be continuing their work ? 
In the great migration of peoples now proceeding, when 
millions are travelling far to make themselves new 
homes, it is something to be valued to be permitted to 
continue where your own have occupied for generations. 
This church should be to you your Mecca, your Jerusa- 
lem ; every part of it and its surroundings a memorial, 
every name a history. From pew and pulpit, from the 
highways leading to this temple, from " God's acre " ad- 
joining, visionary forms should greet you, each with its 
separate message, pleasant, pathetic, admonitory. A 
place this for thoughts, a place to engage the heart's 
deepest affections. And for those who later have set- 
tled here there is much to move and uplift. Is not the 



64 



THE CHUECH OF STATESMEN. 



wealth of our traditions for all, and the joy of laboring 
together for all, and the promise for all that " the glory 
of this latter house shall be greater than that of the 
former " ? God grant that in faithfulness we bring this 
to pass, and make this church not merely a remembrance 
in the land, but a present, a living power! 




GRAVESTONES OF PASTOR TOMPSON AND TEACHER FLYNT. 



i639 1889 

Commemorative Services, 

COMPLETION OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS 

SINCE THE GATHERING OF THE 

fir0t Cl^urcl) of O^rig^t in :©uincr. 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 29, 1889, 

AT 2 P. M. 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSES BY THE PASTOR: SEPT. 22, AT 10.30 A.M., 
"THE CHAPPEL OF EASE," WHEELWRIGHT'S CHURCH AT THE MOUNT; 
SEPT. 29, 10.30 A.M., THE ORGANIZATION OF FIRST CHURCH AND ITS 
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



Gloria from the Twelfth Mass Mozart. 

Invocation. 
The Rev. Roderick Stebbins, Pastor of the First Church in Milton. 

" O Sins unto the Lord " Chandler. 



;g)crtpture ;^rtection)J. 

The Rev. G. Herbert Hosmer, Pastor of the Church of the Unity in 

Neponset. 

Hymn, by Sternhold Northjield. 

Reaper. 
The Rev. Alfred P. Putnam, D.D. 

Response, " Bow down thine ear " Davenport. 

The Rev. Daniel Munro Wilson, Pastor. 

John Quincy Adams Brackett, Lieut.-Governor of Massachusetts. 

The Rev. Stopford Wentworth Brooke, Pastor of the First Church in 

Boston. 



Jlt^U^IC. 



Sacred Sonq; 



Solo, 



Charles Francis Adams. 
The Rev. Alfred A. Ellsworth, Pastor of the First Parish Congrega- 
tional Church of Braintrce. 
JosiAH QuiNCY. 



Hymn written for the 200th Anniversary, by John Quincy Adams. 



Alas 1 how swift the moments fly ! 

How flash the years along ! 
Scarce here, yet gone already by, 

The burden of a soug. 
See childhood, youth, and manhood pass, 

And age, with furrowed brow ; 
Time was ; Time shall be, — drain the glass, 

But where in Time is now ? 

Time is the measure but of change ; 

No present hour is found ; 
The past, the future, fill the range 

Of Time's unceasing round. 



Where, then, is Now ? In realms above, 

With God's atoning Lamb, 
In regions of eternal love, 

Where sits enthroned 1 Am. 

Then, pilgrim, let thy joys and tears 

On Time no longer lean ; 
But henceforth all thy hopes and fears 

From earth's affections wean : 
To God let votive accents rise ; 

With truth, with virtue, live ; 
So all the bliss that Time denies 

Kternity shall give. 



jpoem. 
Christopher Pearse Cranch. 

" Oh, Praise the Lord " J. B. Marsh. 

The Rev. Christopher R. Eliot, Pastor of the First Church in Dorchester. 

The Rev. James de Xormandie, Pastor of the First Churcli in Roxbury. 

The Rev. Joseph Osgood, Pastor of the First Church in Cohasset. 

Old Hundred, 



'25cncbiction. 

The Rev. Edward Norton, Pastor of the Evangelical Congregational 
Church of Quincy. 



The First Church of Christ in Braintree was Embodied Sep. 16, 1639. 

Record of the Rev. John Hancock. 



MINISTERS OF FIRST CHURCH. 

rWiLLiAM ToMPSON, Pastor, ordained September 24, 1639 ; died Decem- 
J ber 10, 1666. 

[Heney Flynt, Teacher, ordained March 17, 1640; died April 27, 1668. 

Moses Fiske, ordained September 11, 1672; died August 10, 1708. 

Joseph Marsh, ordained May 18, 1709; died March 8, 1725-6. 

John Hancock, ordained November 2, 1726 ; died May 7, 1774. 

Lemuel Briant, ordained December 11, 1745; resigned October 22, 1753. 

Anthony Wibird, ordained February 5, 1755 ; died June 4, 1800. 

Peter Whitney, ordained February 5, 1800 ; died March 3, 1843. 

William Parsons Lunt, ordained June 3, 1835; died March 21, 1857. 

John Doane Wells, ordained December 27, 1860; resigned May 28, 1876. 

Daniel Munro Wilson, installed March 24, 1880. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 



i "HE day on which the celebration occurred was bright, 
-*■ and tempered with a pleasant air. Some who were 
present at the services in the morning remained in the 
church till the afternoon. These, together with a large 
number who arrived in an early afternoon train, were 
provided with refreshments in the chapel. Long before 
the hour appointed the church was full, and by two o'clock 
every part of it was occupied. An animated and beautiful 
scene was presented. The pulpit and its immediate sur- 
roundings were decorated with plants and flowers, a mas- 
sive cross of golden-rod suspended against the wall back of 
the pulpit being particularly noticeable from its contrast 
with the dark maroon draperies which formed its back- 
ground. The memorial tablets to Presidents John and 
John Quincy Adams were decked with laurel wreaths, 
while the dates " 1639 " and " 1889," wrought in green 
leaves, were conspicuously displayed upon the walls. 

After the " Gloria " was sung by the choir, the Rev. 
Roderick Stebbins offered the following invocation: 

INVOCATION BY THE REV. R. STEBBINS. 

Thou almighty and mysterious One ! Thou who art with- 
out a beginning of days or an end of years ! we come to Thee ; 
we call upon Thy name, we beseech Thy holy presence, we wor- 



70 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

ship Thee in prayer and praise and spoken word. We come 
to Thee on a day of memory, when the century past and gone 
leaves our minds grateful that we have been so blest. We trust 
in Thee, Thou almighty giver of all good ; and may we ac- 
knowledge Thee in the rejoicings and in the thanksgivings of 
the hour. May we acknowledge Thee to be our Father, — the 
Father of the generation past, and Father of the generation yet 
to come. Amen. 

The Rev. G. H. Hosmer read a selection of very ap- 
propriate passages from the Scripture, immediately after 
which the choir broke forth in the noble paraphrase of 
the XVIIIth Psalm by Sternhold, which ends with this 
stanza : — 

" The Lord descended from above, and bowed the heavens high, 
And underneath His feet he cast the darkness of the sky ; 
On cherubs and on cherubins full royally he rode, 
And on the wings of all the winds came flying all abroad." 

The Rev. A. P. Putnam, D. D., then offered the fol- 
lowing prayer : — 

PRAYER BY THE REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D. D. 

God, eternal and infinitely glorious One, whom the heaven 
of heavens cannot contain, yet who dwellest in temples which 
our hands have built, and in the secret recesses of every sincere 
and faithful soul ! help us who are here before Thee to feel Thy 
presence and to celebrate Thy goodness, as we thus enter into 
these gates with thanksgiving, and into these courts with praise, 
and would fain bless and magnify Thy great and holy name. 
Reminded as we are by this impressive anniversary how the 
generations come and go, and how change is written on all 
earthly things, we come to Thee, and find strength and com- 
fort in the thought that Thou art from everlasting to everlast- 



I 



OPENING EXERCISES. 71 

ing, — the one sure rock and refuge, almighty Father and 
Friend of us all forever and ever. The fathers, where are they ? 
Where, but still with Thee in whom they put their trust, and to 
whom they were faithful even unto death ? And in Thee, in 
Thee, Lord our God, we would also repose our trust, while 
we pray that we may receive of Thy spirit and do Thy will. 
Here, on this consecrated ground, where they toiled and tended 
this vine that grew to such goodly growth and abundant fruit, — 
toiled to found the beneficent institutions under which we live 
and thrive, — we would thank Thee for all their pious labors 
and examples, and for their rich bequests to the future. We 
thank Thee for this ancient church of their care and love, and 
for all the signal favors which Thou hast vouchsafed unto 
it in all its continued history from the first to the last. We 
thank Thee for the long line of earnest and devoted pastors 
who have here preached Thy word, and had so many souls 
given them as the seals of their ministry and the crown of 
their rejoicing. We thank Thee for that great company of 
godly men and saintly women who have reverently trodden 
these aisles and bowed themselves here in prayer, and lifted 
unto Thee the voice of sacred song, and communed with the 
Christ, and sought to be in his likeness, and so entered into their 
rest. We thank Thee for all those kind and excellent teachers, 
and active and useful workers, who have here wisely instructed 
and lovingly guided throng after throng of tender youth, or in 
manifold other ways have wrought good for this community in 
which they lived. We thank Thee also for the many illustrious 
statesmen, rulers, reformers, and philanthropists who have here 
had their birth or home, and who have here caught lessons of wis- 
dom and virtue and duty which they have carried forth to larger 
spheres, where in our own land or abroad, in calm or storm, in 
darkness or in sunshine, they have dedicated their gifts and their 
all to the welfare of their country and of mankind. For the 
purity of their heart and life, for their stern integrity, which not 
the clamors of party or the blandishments and temptations of 



72 COMMEMOKATIVE SERVICES. 

the world could mar or weaken, for their service of truth and jus- 
tice and freedom, the cause of good government, of sound learn- 
ing and morals, and Christian truth, and for all the blessed 
results which they achieved we thank and bless Thee, Thou 
God of our life. For the memories of the precious dead we 
thank and bless Thee. Not unmindful, not unobservant of this 
scene and of these solemnities is the great cloud of witnesses by 
which we are now and here surrounded. They are here with us 
in thought and sympathy, in love, in spirit, and in fellowship. 
Are they not ministering spirits unto us, and shall not we also 
be the heirs of salvation ? Grant us more and more, we beseech 
Thee, of their faith, their zeal, their consecration to Thy work. 
Pour out Thy blessing, we pray, upon this church, upon both 
pastor and people ; and as Thou hast been with it in time past, 
so wilt Thou be with it in time to come, that Christian faith and 
love may here abound, and go forth hence to disseminate far and 
wide the influences that shall be for the healing of souls and of 
the nation. Bless, we pray Thee, our country ; and as Thou hast 
been with her alway and hast guided her safely thus far, as by 
a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and hast 
made her prosperous among the states and empires of the earth, 
so wilt Thou lead her still on to a more exalted destiny, whose 
record shall tell of other triumphs of Thy strength, whose glad 
day shall see other shackles broken and other slaves made free, 
and more and more of faith and love and light. Bless the Presi- 
dent of the United States and all who are in authority ; we pray 
that they may rule in equity and righteousness, may fear God 
and eschew iniquity, and cleave to Thy will, and serve in their 
day and generation as those who shall give account. Be with 
us, one and all, and help us that we may be good citizens, 
kind and helpful neighbors and friends, and faithful and true 
disciples and followers of Thy dear Son. Give unto us the 
clear vision without which Thy people perish. Give unto us 
that purity which those have who see God, that truth which 
maketh free indeed, that faith which overcometh the world, that 



ADDRESS BY THE PASTOR. 73 

love which is the fulfilling of the law, that love to God and 
love to man which are so acceptable in Thy sight. And may 
we have within us those sacred fires of truth and liberty that 
shall quicken us to every good word and work ; and may we 
so live that when at last we shall be called hence, and others 
shall succeed to our places, it shall be given to us, as to those 
who have gone before, to see the seed that has been sown in 
faith, in patience and fidelity, springing up and bearing fruit 
unto Thy glory. Hear us and answer us, and forgive us and 
bless us. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

ADDRESS BY THE PASTOR. 

Dear Friends, — This service we are now celebrating is the 
culmination of our commemorative services. Already we have 
had delivered by the pastor of the church two discourses in full 
Puritan measure, and only half that might be said has been 
said. But what I said this morning and a week ago this morn- 
ing was intended as preparation for these services, and also that 
I myself might be effaced in order that persons who came from 
abroad and others deeply interested in the church should have 
an opportunity to speak. 

The Rev. John Hancock says that it was on the 16th day 
of September, 1639, that our church was embodied. Add ten 
days to that for change of style, and it brings the date to 
the 26th, which is really the anniversary of our birth as a 
church. It seems to me, and I say it with all deference, that 
Governor Winthrop was in error when he wrote that this 
church was gathered the 17th of the month, and that Dr. Lunt 
continued the error when he celebrated the two hundredth 
anniversary on the 29th. To be sure we also are celebrating 
on the 29th ; but we take the day set by Dr. Lunt in order to 
avoid confusion, leaving it to those who come after us to select 
the date more in accordance with such evidence as we possess. 



74 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

The testimony of the Rev. Mr. Hancock is of first importance. 
He had the ancient records, now lost, in his possession ; he was 
a careful man ; and he is positive our church was embodied Sep- 
tember 16, — that is, September 26, new style. It was a tempta- 
tion also to celebrate on this present day, because being Sunday 
so many of the laymen would find it more convenient to be here. 
Of course for the same reason we are deprived of the presence 
of many clergymen whom we should be delighted to have with 
us ; but ministers are quite ready to be sacrificed at any time 
in order that the laity may have a chance to go to church. I 
am put here to bid all who are present a hearty welcome, — to 
you the friends of this church, to you once members of it and 
now from a distance coming to join in this glad occasion, to all 
who are interested in the historical associations of this church, 
and to all who feel that by coming here they celebrate the 
memory of one of the most influential and honorable societies 
in the Commonwealth. 

It is customary at all celebrations such as we are now tak- 
ing part in for the State of Massachusetts to be represented ; 
and heretofore, at the celebrations of the First Churches that 
have preceded ours in age, the State has been represented, 
either by the governor or by the lieutenant-governor. Our Gov- 
ernor writes me that he is not at all able to be present on 
account of illness ; he has sent the following letter, which I 
shall read : — 

Boston, September 21, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass and Rev. D. M. Wilson, Quincy, Mass. 

Dear Sirs, — I greatly regret that I shall not be able to attend 
the exercises on Sunday the 29th instant, in commemoration of the 
founding of the First Church in Quincy. In such an event I take 
deep interest, as its occurrence indicates the vitality of those prin- 
ciples which led to the settlement of, and which are influencing the 
development of, this country. 

Your church and society have fame throughout this broad land 
and beyond its limits, in that two of those who have been uum- 



ADDKESS BY THE PASTOR. 75 

bered among its members have been selected to fill the highest 
office in the gift of our people. Both of them were giants among 
the men of their days. They have gone, and your church edifice is 
the shrine of their honored dust ; but the influence of their lives 
remains for our instruction and benefit, and for that of coming gen- 
erations of Americans. 

We have with us their descendants whom we delight to honor, 
not so much because of their ancestry as for their worth and ability. 
The Adams family, the First Church in Quincy, the City of Quincy, 
are so closely united that they are essentially parts of one whole, 
centres of right influence, of energetic action, of prosperity, of so- 
briety in all things, — in a word, examples of Kew England, its 
civilization, its institutions, and its growth. 

I am yours very respectfully, 

Oliver Ames. 

Now, as the Governor could not be present, an invitation was 
sent to John Quincy Adams Brackett, not only because he 
would represent the State, but because of his name. Brackett, 
Adams, Quincy, — when has this church been without these 
names ? And in every generation those who bore them 
honored this church and their country, were useful and ad- 
mirable members of the community. Sorry I am that on ac- 
count of illness, also, he is not here to represent not only the 
State, but the names which he bears. 

You all understand, because I presume you have all read 
the history of the early days of the colony, that this church 
reaches back in its existence to the year 1636. For two or 
more years before First Church was organized, worshippers 
met here, but they did not then form an independent congre- 
gation. They went to their meeting-house in Boston, and 
there received the sacrament. They went ten miles from 
here to the city — then the town — of Boston, to attend this 
occasional service. The pastor at that time was John Wilson, 
and it is somewhat of a coincidence that Wilson is the name 
of the present pastor of the church which originated in the 
members of the Boston church who lived here. But we have 



76 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

with US the pastor of Boston's First Church, and he will re- 
member that when the people here wanted to withdraw from 
his church and have a church of their own, his church felt 
so poor it feared that the number of persons going from them 
would weaken it, and they were loath to give their consent. 
But they had the shrewdness to tax the people of this place 
for the support of their church when they finally gave permis- 
sion, and as they " grew up with the country " they eventually 
prospered, and, I am pleased to say, can now get on without 
any support from us, 

I have the pleasure of introducing to you the Rev. Stopford 
Wentworth Brooke, pastor of the First Church in Boston. 



ADDRESS BY THE REV. S. W.. BROOKE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — I must confess that when I received 
the kind invitation of your minister and committee, I experi- 
enced some feelings of awkwardness and incongruity at hav- 
ing to speak to you on such an essentially American occasion 
as the present. But with that hospitality, which is so delight- 
ful a characteristic of this country and for which I have had 
so often to be grateful, you have been good enough to forget 
that I am not an American citizen. You have remembered 
only that I am the minister of the First Church in Boston. It 
is as such that I bring you the warm greetings of the ancient 
mother church out of which you sprang, on having completed 
two hundred and fifty years of your corporate life. 1 had 
hoped indeed that another representative of that Church, one 
whose name is associated in your minds with occasions such as 
this, one whose extraordinarily intimate and varied acquain- 
tance with the facts of New England history we all recognize 
and admire, — Dr. George Ellis, — would have been here to speak 
to you about the early relations of the two churches. It would 
not be wise however for me, even if I had the requisite knowl- 



ADDRESS BY THE EEV. S. W. BROOKE. 77 

edge, to trespass on his ground; and vou — you who know the 
general outline of those facts so well yourselves — would scarcely 
thank me for what you might well call such English audacity. 
I shall say nothing, therefore, about the mutual history of the 
two churches ; but I will rather, as a Unitarian clergyman 
speaking to Unitarian laymen, confine myself to two thoughts 
applicable to our present Unitarian position, which have been 
suggested by this happy occasion. They are common thoughts ; 
but I need not therefore ask your indulgence for them, for it is 
common thoughts after all that most rule our lives. 

The first is that the men who founded these churches were 
men possessing — nay, rather possessed by — a great idea. They 
left England, its comforts, and all the dear associations that 
brooded for them in those meadows and quiet villages of the 
eastern countries, they endured this inhospitable climate, they 
faced ferocious enemies, the terrors of the wilderness, and the 
doom of death for many of their number, because they desired 
to worship and serve their God according to the inmost convic- 
tions of their souls. They would not compromise with what 
they considered the truth, they would not conceal it out of in- 
difference or fear or self-interest ; but holding it dearer than 
all outward happiness, they sought a place where they might 
live by their truth in freedom. That is a memory which must 
have been in the minds of many of us to-day ; it is a thought 
which we shall do well to cherish. We live in an age which 
congratulates itself on the growth of tolerance between the dif- 
ferent sects of religion. But is there not real danger lest in 
this spread of the tolerant spirit we should forget, as these 
men never did, that there is a virtue in thinking out our own 
opinions, in making them part of our very life, and in stand- 
ing by them in the face of the world ? I meet Unitarians and 
liberal Christians sometimes — I do not allude to professed 
non-churchgoers — who seem to have no religious convictions 
whatever ; they consider one intellectual form of faith as good 
as another, although they are very certain in their intellectual 



7b COMMEMORATIVE SEEVICES. 

doctrines about business or politics ; they frequent the church 
where their friends go or fashion and wealth lead, although 
views are held and ceremonies performed there with which they 
do not and cannot sympathize. That was not the spirit which 
drove these men whose memory we celebrate to-day into the 
primeval forest across a terrible ocean ; that was not the spirit 
which has made these churches so strong and enduring. They 
were in earnest about their religious thoughts ; they meant them 
to rule their lives ; they believed they were the very truth itself ; 
they were prepared to suffer and die for them. Better I say 
their earnestness with all its fearful intolerance — and it was 
fearful — than our sentimental tolerance without their earnest- 
ness of conviction. 

There is another thought suggested by this occasion, which 
you will permit me to put before you. It is that the men who 
founded these churches intended they should be centres whence 
other centres of intellectual and spiritual influence should radi- 
ate through the land. In Virginia, as Mr. Lodge has recently 
told us, " the mass of the clergy were men who sold tobacco, were 
the boon companions of the planters, hunted, shot, and drank 
hard." With some of these occupations I have no quarrel ; but 
the gist of his condemnation comes when he adds that they per- 
formed " their sacred duties in a perfunctory and not always 
decent manner." But in New England the clergy were some of 
the most cultivated and serious men of their time. With all their 
faults, — faults which belonged to their age as much as to them- 
selves, and few of us who realize how difficult it is to be above 
one's age will condemn them harshly for these, — they yet rep- 
resented and kept vigorous and intelligent that stern doctrine 
and that rigid moral tone of their society, without which it could 
never have conquered its extraordinary difficulties and dangers; 
and so highly did they prize this doctrine and this tone that in 
every new settlement they established a church of their faith, 
and secured thus the spread of their views and their spirit. Is 
not that too an ideal which our churches — the lineal descend- 



ADDRESS BY THE REV. S. W. BROOKE. 79 

ants of those stern and fiery men — would do well to remember ? 
I am well aware, when I say this, that the Unitarian churches 
of New England have always represented a powerful intellec- 
tual and moral influence in the community. It would not be 
becoming for me to remind you of that new spiritual awaken- 
ing to which in their early days they gave birth here, to speak 
of their part in the Antislavery agitation or in the great war, 
or in the saving of California to the Union. You know too, 
better than I do, how many are the benevolent institutions they 
founded in Boston and other cities. But still, with the excep- 
tion of Mr. Starr King's lonely venture by the waters of the 
Pacific, — and it was as a patriot rather than a Unitarian that he 
worked there, — they have confined their range as churches too 
much to New England. As individuals indeed they have accom- 
plished much elsewhere. It is a well-known fact that to-day some 
of the most intrepid commercial enterprises, much of the best lit- 
erature and of the more progressive politics of the country, owe 
part of their vitality and success to members of our churches. 
As individuals they have indeed fulfilled the ideal of those from 
whom they have sprung. But where in the new settlements are 
the churches those ancestors in their zeal would have established 
there ? Where are the centres in the States toward the sunset 
whence our intellectual and spiritual influence is to radiate 
through the land ? Where is the corporate body more powerful 
than one or two isolated individuals can ever be, which is to 
cherish and spread our doctrine and spirit as those early set- 
tlers did theirs ? Those centres are unfortunately few and far 
from one another. We need therefore much more of their tem- 
per of zeal. There is a great deal no doubt in the methods 
they employed from which we must keep ourselves free. They 
were far too fond of monopoly in religion ; they applied the 
trust-system ruthlessly to Christianity ; they considered them- 
selves, those old English squires and yeomen, " the lords of 
human kind ; " " pride in their port, defiance in their eye," they 
brooked no opinion, endured no morality, which was not their 



80 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

own. They would have made the whole world Puritan if they 
could, and if God had not heen different to their idea of Him. It 
is a fault, however, that an Englishman can scarcely condemn se- 
verely in them without condemning severely his whole nation ; it 
is a quality too, of which I am bound to say — if you will permit me 
to say it — that I have found no deficiency whatever in Americans. 
Their bitter intolerance indeed we shall in these days of religious 
liberty probably avoid ; it smacks too much of High Church Epis- 
copalianism or narrow Orthodoxy to suit a Unitarian. But 
their aggressive zeal ; their resolve to plant their doctrines and 
morality and spirit wherever they could find a foothold in 
men's minds and hearts ; their surprise, not to use a stronger 
word, if a new settlement refused one of their churches, — of that 
temper we Unitarians can, for some time to come, have a great 
deal more without running much risk of falling like Saint Peter, 
or becoming like the Sons of Thunder. Like the founders of these 
churches, let us assume then actively that we are born to rule the 
earth, and do our best to establish that rule wherever we can. 

Ladies and gentlemen, these are the two thoughts which this 
happy occasion has suggested to me. Whether the First Church 
would altogether approve of them I cannot say. They have 
given me, however, the privilege of bringing to you — it is pleas- 
ant to repeat pleasant messages — their heartiest congratulations 
on having attained — how shall I express it? — nearly the age 
of the first great Pilgrim of the Invisible, our father Abraham. 
And in conclusion I can only ask you, if you have found any 
thing to disapprove of in what I have said, to remember that 
I am not yet New Englandized, — or, shall I say rather, not yet 
Americanized. 

Mr. L. H. H. Johnson then made a statement regard- 
ing distinguished persons who had been unable to attend 
the services. He said : — 

It was a disappointment to those who had charge of the invi- 
tations, it will be a matter of deep regret to those of you who 








Rev. William Smith. 
William P. Lunt, D. D. 



Rev. Peter Whitney. 
Rev. D. M. Wilson. 



Hon. Richard Cranch. 
Rev. J. D. Wells. 



HEUIOTYPE PRIMING CO., BOSTON. 



ADDRESS BY MR. L. H. H. JOHNSON". 81 

were privileged to worship here during his pastorate, that tlie 
Rev. John D. Wells could not be with us to-day. He is the only 
one living of the former pastors of this church, and it would have 
been peculiarly fitting and appropriate, could his voice have been 
heard on this occasion of her rejoicing, this anniversary of her 
birth. In his absence, let me read you his letter. 

Boston, Sept. 19, 1889. 
My dear Mr. Wilson, — Were it not that I have for some time 
felt myself unequal to the demands of public occasions, I should 
be glad to accept your kind invitation to take part in the cele- 
bration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the First 
Church of Quincy. The occasion is one of deep interest to all 
concerned in the history and the welfare of the ancient parish, and 
of no little moment — permit me to say — to me, whose privilege 
it was so recently, and for so long a season, to occupy the place 
which you now fill. 

To all my former parishioners, and to your whole people, let me 
extend my hearty greeting and my congratulations that they have 
lived to see this day, on which I trust they will not only renew 
their fealty to the faith and freedom of the fathers by whom the 
church was founded, but will dedicate themselves afresh to the ser- 
vice of a far higher faith and wider freedom than the fathers ever 
dreamed of, — looking forward with confidence to the dawn of that 
distant but surely coming day, when the clouds of ignorance and 
superstition that still obscure the heavens shall have utterly dis- 
solved and vanished, and the very truth of God shall shine every- 
where, undimmed and unobstructed. 

I am sincerely yours, John D. Wells. 

Many other letters have been received by the committee, 

among them one from Mr. Breck, of Milton, an old gentleman 

of nearly ninety-two. I am going to read a short extract from 

his letter, because it gives an interesting picture of the church 

as it appeared during service about ISll.^ I have here, also, 

letters from the pastor of the First Church of Exeter, N. H., the 

1 For this and other letters see later pages. 
6 



82 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

church which Rev. John Wheelwright founded when driven out of 
this neighborhood ; from President Eliot ; from Rev. Dr. Stores, 
of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose 
Dorothy Q., not John Hancock's, as he is careful to say, was born 
just a century before him, and from many others. All the letters 
are most interesting, and only the fear of taking too much time 
from those who are to follow prevents me from reading them. 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson : The next speaker I shall in- 
troduce to you is one who by his knowledge of the facts 
of our church and town history, by his deep interest in all 
that has happened in New England's past, and by his 
appreciation of the spirit which led to the planting of our 
institutions, is highly qualified to speak to you on this 
occasion. Indeed, it would have been entirely acceptable 
to the committee having charge of these exercises if he 
had consented to consume the larger portion of the time 
devoted to this celebration. I am sure you will welcome 
in this hour Mr. Charles Francis Adams. 

ADDRESS BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 

In one of the best known and most deservedly popular of his 
poems, Oliver Wendell Holmes has said : — 

" Little of all we value here 
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year, 
Without both feeling and looking queer. 
In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, 
So far as I know, but a tree and truth." 

What is true of a century is, it goes without saying, much 
more true of that period of time the close of which we to-day 
are here to commemorate. But after all, like most other true 
things, it is true only comparatively speaking and in part. It is 
true of things human ; it is in nowise true of things truly divine, 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 83 

or of natural processes which work out results regardless of time, 
as mortals reckon it. We and our fathers before us have lived 
here in Quincy two centuries and a half, through all those years 
worshipping within these walls, or within the other and humbler 
walls which preceded these. Two centuries and a half seem to 
us, and measured by the record of human events they indeed 
are, an epoch ; yet not long since, as I was one day walking 
here in Quincy with an eminent man of science, we stopped on 
the brink of a tarn in one of our abandoned quarries. The ledge 
chanced to be of slate, the thin strata of which stood perpendic- 
ularly to the water, which lay at their base. Pointing up, my 
companion called my attention to a line of fracture near the top 
of the wall of stone, and perhaps a foot below the thin herbage 
which grew from the layer of soil which overspread it. The 
fracture was distinct and uniform, — just such a regular even 
break as you might see if some great weight were to pass over 
the narrow end of a bundle of shingles resting upright, and 
crush them all at a single point in one direction. As I looked 
wonderingly at this break in the solid rock, — the fractured tops 
of the slate all inclining to the southwest, — my companion told 
me that it was caused by the movement of the glacier during the 
ice age of America. The ice age of America ! He spoke of a 
period so remote that the mention of it reduces all records made 
by man to mere memoranda of things of yesterday. Yet there 
before me was that line of surface fracture in the rock, — clean, 
uniform, distinct, — just as the towering, grinding wall of ice 
had left it, when, its steady march to the southward coming to 
a close, it had, thousands of years ago, slowly and sullenly re- 
ceded in the direction of those remote regions of the frozen 
north where it still reigns supreme. The breal^ in the wall of 
slate had been there where I looked then upon it, the same in 
every minute particular, from that time to this ; it was there 
when the Scripture records say that Adam and Eve dwelt in 
Eden ; it was there when Moses led the children of Israel up 
out of Egypt ; it was there when Greek and Persian were con- 



84 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

tending at Marathon and Thermopylee ; it was there during the 
twenty centuries of Roman empire ; it was there when Columbus 
first set foot on American soil ; it was there — it had been there 
ten thousand years — when yesterday, as it were, our fathers, a 
mere handful, gathered here together on that September day 
and founded this church. 

Viewed in this light, in the light of Nature and of God, the 
event we commemorate seems, and is, dwarfed of its age and 
brought very near to us. A thousand years measured in this 
scale become but as yesterday, or a watch in the night ; and the 
signing of the Braintree Church compact was something which 
occurred in the morning, while we here have now come to high 
noon. We are here but to celebrate the event of to-day's earlier 
hours ; yet few of the human institutions which existed in those 
earlier hours of Nature's single day exist now. The record is 
almost appalling when we recall the number of the creations 
of man this church of Braintree, in its quiet, steady, unbroken 
span of life, has survived. On that 26th of September, 1639, 
when Governor Winthrop sailed from the town of Boston across 
the bay to Braintree to meet those reverend pastors, Hobart and 
Wilson and Mather and Allen, who had found their way hither 
through the forest paths to extend the right hand of fellowship 
to William Tompson and Henry Flynt, history, as we know it, 
had scarcely yet begun. Galileo, the father of modern astro- 
nomy, was still living and learning ; and John Milton, a man in 
the flower of his youth, had just returned to London from his 
memorable sojourn in Italy. Scarcely a dynasty in Europe 
which now exists existed then. Russia was an unknown and 
barbarous region, not yet admitted into the number of civilized 
States, for a whole generation of men was to pass away before 
Peter the Great rocked in his cradle. Prussia was to be created ; 
Gustavus Adolphus had died at Lutzen only seven years before ; 
the Thirty Years' War was still raging, and Sweden was the 
first military power in Europe. Poland has since been obliter- 
ated from the list of nations ; but Poland then was the bulwark 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 85 

of civilization, for it was more than forty years later that John 
Sobieski smote the Turk before the walls of Vienna, and re- 
leased Christendom forever from fear of the Islamite. Further 
west Richelieu, the great cardinal-duke, was organizing modern 
France and planting those seeds of wind which ripened in the ful- 
ness of time into the whirlwind of just a century ago. Finally, 
in England the second Stuart still sat upon the throne, for the 
famous Long Parliament had not yet been convened ; John 
Hampden was a country gentleman, and men had yet to hear 
of Oliver Cromwell. 

Thus, Sunday by Sunday, as our fathers through eight gener- 
ations have gathered within these walls and followed through 
the centuries the same forms of worship, — the church steadily 
and unceasingly pursuing its work of modest, quiet usefulness, 
— in the outer world empires and dynasties have risen, culmi- 
nated, and declined ; the names of men marking epochs in hu- 
man progress have been heard for the first time, become familiar 
as household words, and then been embalmed in history. In the 
intervals of divine service, men and women have listened on the 
porch of this church to rumors of the victories of Lutheran and 
Catholic in the time of Wallenstein and the Swede ; they there 
discussed the issue of King and Commons in the days of the 
Long Parliament ; they heard of the death of King Charles on 
the scaiTold before Whitehall, and sent up prayers for the soul 
of the Protector when he was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
Marston Moor and Naseby were names as familiar and thrilling 
to them as Gettysburg and Appomattox are to us. King 
Philip's war hung a terror over them ; and the story of the 
death of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham was no less a cause 
of thankfulness, here expressed in earnest prayer, than were 
the tidings that Washington stood within Yorktown, or that 
Grant was in possession of Vicksburg. This church had passed 
through nearly half of its existence when its doors were closed 
by the first tempests of the Revolution, and its pastor read from 
the pulpit the freshly promulgated Declaration of Independence. 



86 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

All these human events have taken place in the two centuries 
and a half since this church — so old and yet so young — was 
gathered, and it has borne witness to them ; yet in the sight of 
Him here worshipped, and in the scale in which His events are 
ordered, it is a new-comer, and but of yesterday. One hundred 
centuries have gone since the last great process of Nature left 
Quincy Bay, and the hills sloping to it upon which we dwell, 
and the granite which here breaks through the earth's crust, as 
we see them now. Thus this, the first church of Braintree, is 
old only as things human are old ; but so far as America at 
least is concerned, who shall deny the age of an institution, or 
refuse honor to it, when its life of unbroken usefulness covers 
more than half the years which have elapsed since the voyage of 
Columbus ? For it and for us " the past at least is secure." 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson : When the old town of Brain- 
tree grew so large and its settlers pushed so far south 
that it was a hardship for some of them to come of a 
Sunday to the old meeting-house, they began to agitate 
the project of building a new house in a more central lo- 
cation. The people in this part of the town were not 
in sympathy with the movement, and opposed it. But 
finally the people at the south, quite out of patience, 
built a house for themselves. Even then our ancestors 
here treated them as Pharaoh treated the Israelites, — 
they would not let them go. Much ill feeling was be- 
tween ' the two parts of the town, and it was continued 
for years. I am happy to state that it is now all ended, 
and that I have the pleasure of introducing to you to-day 
the minister of that congregation which earliest swarmed 
from us ; and I can assure him that all animosity on our 
part has entirely ceased. The Rev. Mr. Ellsworth of 
the old church in Braintree. 



ADDRESS BY THE EEV. A. A. ELLSWORTH. 87 



ADDRESS BY THE REV. A. A. ELLSWORTH. 

As a representative of the First Church of Braintree I can 
assure the pastor of this ancient First Church, speaking for 
her eldest daughter, that nothing but the kindest feelings are 
indulged by the child for the parent. And in behalf of my 
people, many of whom are here, I earnestly thank the com- 
mittee in charge of these exercises for including us among 
their guests. 

The extension of fellowship toward us could not be unac- 
knowledged, although it involved the duty of speaking, amidst 
so rich a repast of thought and expression appropriate to the 
occasion, where if ever for me silence would be golden. I am 
glad to know that our church colonized from this in the sixty- 
eighth year of your age, — a period when children are very apt 
to leave home for local convenience and for personal happiness, 
and still cherish the associations of their birthplace. 

During the past few days I have been reviewing in the excel- 
lent sermon of your pastor, and in many an old volume, the 
record of the two hundred and fifty years which are included be- 
tween the dates on the programme. It is a history full of inter- 
est at every step, and becomes dramatic to one realizing that he 
is following back the streams of his own existence, who dis- 
covers here and there the trace of an ancestor, and thus feels 
the rythm of pulsations which chord with the beatings of his 
own heart. It is a long, full story, and were a day given each 
one here to speak, it could not half be told. We may, however, 
by the associations of this hour revive many fading memories, 
kindle a flame of gratitude toward those who lived in the past, 
become invigorated for present duties, and thus be the media- 
tors of all the good Puritan forces which may still go march- 
ing on. 

Happy the orator or historian who at some " protracted meet- 
ing " might present to his audience the many gems of character, 



88 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

act, or incident easily gathered out of the details of this history. 
The specific is always so much more interesting than the ge- 
neric. But to do it justice requires talents and time not at my 
command. 

The last speaker, Mr, Charles Francis Adams, is one who 
above others has both the talents and the time. The gems are 
not always sought for in the exhumations of the early archives, 
for it is frequently a diversion, requiring not talents but only 
time to entertain an audience with the errors and foibles of the 
Puritan age. Many reviewers seem to be like house-servants, 
sent to the attics to bring down ancient and faded wardrobes, 
and to excite amusement, forgetting that ancient errors largely 
were like clothing, — a fashion, to change and pass away. 

The history of the Puritans is most important to us, not 
from their accidental peculiarities, but for the great eternal 
principles upon wliich rested their religion and their liberty. 
The rest is mere bric-a-brac, which pleases a senseless and tri- 
fling generation. 

Our fathers were men of stalwart mould. Baptized in the 
spirit of the Reformation, they believed in the freedom and lib- 
erty of the individual soul, and out of this came a liberality that 
had never been seen before, say what we may of their narrow- 
ness. Much of that which we talk of as a sentiment, they lived 
as a principle, and made sacrifices for, that it might exist. 
They collected the seeds for the tree of liberty at Worms and 
Geneva ; fostered its growth at Scrooby, Braintree, Essex, and 
Amsterdam; took it up rooted, with the names attached, trans- 
ported it and set it out in these very fields, that they might live 
piously under its shade and worship God beneath its branches, 
and not that it might grow May-poles to be danced around. 

Our fathers were reformatory, revolutionary, schismatic ; and 
in these qualities they displayed courage and mental force, but 
these had not made tliern historic characters worthy to be so 
remembered. Their virtue consisted not in destruction, not in 
mere negation, not in breaking up old temples and housing 



ADDRESS BY THE EEV. A. A. ELLSWORTH. 89 

themselves in the fragments, building nothing better for them- 
selves, not in eliminating superstition and tyranny, — but in a 
vigorous grasp and hold of fundamental truth, believed in with 
all their heart, and for which they would contend with all their 
powers. Because they were Protestants they believed not less in 
God, but more in God. They broke with many of the symbols of 
the English Church only because they believed more positively in 
the Divine Spirit. They gave up Christmas and Easter because 
their firmer faith saw Christ walking every day among the 
churches and standing by their side amidst wolves and Indians. 
They held strongly to man's depravity, but they held just as 
strongly to his responsibility under a moral law, and thus kept 
the balance of his real dignity. It is shocking to some sensibili- 
ties to know that they believed the heathen a lost man, but they 
were not hardened fatalists to leave him untaught without the 
offers of salvation. Mayhew and Eliot would blaze the forest 
path with their bleeding feet, if only a savage might learn of 
" justification by faith." They developed into republicans and 
threw off the yoke of British rule, but they believed in law and 
order, and voted themselves poor that they might have schools 
and churches, colleges and an intelligent and righteous legisla- 
ture. Shall we merely build the tombs of the prophets and 
garnish the sepulchre of the righteous ? Do we imagine that 
the spiritual inertia of their positive faith is to carry us forward 
through all time without any added impulse ? Or will the res- 
toration of what they threw away make up for the throwing 
away of what they held as all important? Will our modern 
agnosticism, deification of science, irresponsible fatalism, and 
secularism secure the Church and State against man's passions, 
unchecked by anything that may be called a positive religion ? 
Is it not still and always true that man's responsibility to God is 
the greatest truth, and that after all our good works, conscience 
always recognizes the fact that there is a margin of demerit 
only to be balanced by some method of forgiving love, and that 
without a distinct faith in a peopled heaven where souls are 



90 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

blessed, there will be little hope of blessedness among a peopled 
earth ? I would not that you should read life backward. 

" Alas ! what once hath been shall be no more ; 

The groaning earth in travail and in pain 
Brings forth its races, but does not restore ; 

And the dead nations never live again." 

But I would make of this past histor}^ a concave mirror, 
catching the rays of the present day and the concentrated good 
principles of the past, all to be focussed into a beacon for the 
future, shining into years far beyond, that liberty, intelligence, 
and religion may never be wanting among men. 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson : Tliis cluirch has never been 
without the name of Quincy. It is the only name, so 
far as we know, which has come down to us without a 
break from Wheelwright's church. Nine generations of 
that family have worshipped in the meeting-houses of this 
society. They have guided the councils of it, honored it 
by their fame, supported it by their liberality.-^ Vessels of 
our communion service bear their name, and this ancient 
Bible was presented by one, and at a later time rebound by 
another among the most honorable of the family. Very 
interesting and instructive are the lives of the Quincys, 
in spite of the difficulty of distinguishing the numerous 
Josiahs and Edmunds from one another. I now have the 
pleasure of introducing to you Josiah Quincy, the sixth 
of that name. 

^ The Rev. IMr. Hancock in his sermon preached the 23d of April, 1 738, 
on the " death of the Hon. Edmund Quincy, Esq., one of his Majesty's Council, 
and of the Judges of the Circuit, and agent for the Province of INIassachusetts 
Bay at the Court of Great Britain," has the following : " And in token of his 
peculiar affection to this church, whereof he was a leading member for many 
years, he has left us an acceptable legacy in his last will and testament. He 
loved U3, and how was his heart engaged in building us a synagogue ? " 



ADDRESS BY JOSIAH QUINCY. 91 



ADDEESS BY JOSIAH QUINCY. 

The anniversary that we celebrate to-day reminds us no less 
of change than of continuity. It is as significant in suggesting 
the reflection that ecclesiastical organizations and theological 
dogmas are not exempt from mutability and decay, as it is in 
recalling the fact that our church of to-day is the lineal descend- 
ant of that which our fathers planted at Mount Wollaston a 
quarter of a millennium ago, — the same church, yet so changed 
in its forms of worship, in its articles of faith, that its founders 
would scarcely be able to recognize it ; the same, yet different, 
even as we, who have long since separated Church and State and 
established religious liberty, are different from our ancestors, 
who charged with sedition the first minister who preached here, 
and banished him from their Commonwealth for theological 
opinions maintained in a sermon. 

Yet under changing form is generally to be found, if rightly 
sought for, unchanging substance ; out of the past speaks often 
a living voice for the present. The Christian Church changes ; 
Christianity remains the same. The kernel that lies concealed 
within the outer envelope is the same to-day as when our 
fathers drew from it the spirit that supported them through the 
trials and hardships of their young settlement ; and it was the 
same then as when it effected that marvellous conversion of 
the ancient world. The famous sermon — probably delivered 
here at the Mount as well as before the Church at Boston — for 
which John Wheelwright was sent forth into the wilderness 
through the deep snows of winter, seems as strangely quaint to 
us in its theology as in its structure and spelling ; yet trans- 
lated into our modern forms of thought and expression, the doc- 
trine of this discourse, which has been well described as a bold 
one for any age, is still glowing with the fire which blazed 
through it two centuries and a half ago, and may well detain us 
for a few moments to-day. 



92 COMMEMORATIVE SEEVICES. 

To support justification by faith or grace, and to deny the 
sufficiency of justification by works, — to use the old theological 
terms, — was Wheelwright's thesis; or to state generally the real 
essence of his side of the Antinomian controversy, of which this 
sermon formed a part, he maintained that a living knowledge of 
spiritual truth was necessary, and that right conduct alone could 
not take its place. The present tendency of liberal religious 
thought is indeed away from this opinion, while it is even more 
at variance with the scientific spirit of our age. But in memory 
of the fearless and able minister, let us briefly look at what is 
essential in the doctrine he upheld. 

The question is really a very simple one. Does the purpose 
and object of our existence lie inside the world as it appears to 
us, or outside of it? If the former, right conduct here is all suf- 
ficient, and Christianity has its chief value as a code of ethics ; 
if the latter, conduct cannot be the final end, but only a means 
to a transcendental end. Is this temporal existence of man a 
real and true life, of which the life eternal is only the sequence 
or resultant ; or is the life eternal the only true life, from which 
man is separated by the passing illusion of existence in the 
material world ? If we answer the first question in the affirma- 
tive, we are substantially under the covenant of works ; if the 
second, we are under the covenant of faith or grace preached by 
Wheelwright. 

Neither from the point of view of the individual man nor from 
that of the human race as a whole can outward works be regarded 
as a final end. The individual enters the form of perception which 
we call the world through the door of birth, leads a brief existence 
of unsatisfied striving, and passes out again through the door of 
death. In no true sense can it be said that our works follow us ; 
they remain behind as part of the common inheritance of human- 
ity, to share the fate of humanity. Some few exceptional persons, 
fortunate — or perhaps rather, in a deeper view, unfortunate — 
in the possession of peculiar temperaments or in their special 
circumstances, are indeed able to regard their lives in the 



ADDRESS BY JOSIAH QUINCT. 93 

world of sense as satisfactory and complete, needing only to 
be crowned with eternity, and to see in their external works 
the purpose of life accomplished and existence justified. But 
for the great mass of mankind life needs, and has everywhere 
and always been given, a transcendental end. In this the great- 
est men of action and the deepest thinkers have agreed with 
unlettered peasants ; thus only has the human mind been able to 
" justify the ways of God to man." Through this church men 
have for two hundred and fifty years sought diligently to find 
that end ; here two Presidents of the United States have joined 
with the humblest citizens of their town in seeking for light to 
understand it. 

Nor do we reach a different conclusion as to the sufficiency of 
works if we merge the individual life in that of the race. If we 
view the human race as one continuous organism, and if we are 
sanguine enough to believe in the ultimate perfectibility of a 
society governed by worldly motives, we cannot avoid the same 
difficulty which meets the individual. For the words of Carlyle 
are true no less of the human race taken as a whole than of its 
separate members : " We emerge from the Inane ; haste storm- 
fully across the astonished earth ; then plunge again into the 
Inane." Science, which sometimes seems so hostile to the 
claims of religion, has established some facts of the greatest 
value in forcing us to the conclusion that no purpose of exist- 
ence can be found inside the limits of the world. One of these 
facts is that the human race has had a beginning and must come 
to an end ; that the globe which we inhabit was evolved out of 
chaos, and only acquired after the lapse of ages those conditions 
which make human life possible ; that in the course of other 
ages those conditions will again change, and human life on earth 
can no longer exist; and that finally what came out of chaos 

will return into chaos, and 

" the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a wrack behind." 



94 COMMEMOEATIVE SERVICES. 

The inexorable hand of time will in the end blot out all hu- 
man civilization, and of man and his works there will be left 
no trace. When the last page of history has been written it will 
be, if it have no signiticance outside the world, " a tale told by an 
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." 

These considerations, which lead some minds indeed to a 
shallow and unphilosophical materialism which explains noth- 
ing, properly lead the way to transcendentalism. From the irre- 
sistible logic of pessimism religion offers the only escape ; but 
it must be a religion not of works alone, not of forms or dog- 
mas or ethics, but a religion such as Wheelwright preached, — a 
religion of grace, of spiritual truth. The life of sense is illu- 
sion, — its final object, to overcome itself and pass into the life 
eternal. Works, which are part of the illusion, are of value to 
him who performs them only as they bring his immortal spir- 
itual individuality nearer to the final point of disillusion ; and he 
who is under the covenant of grace has already attained nearer 
to this point than works alone can carry him. And from that 
grace and spiritual insight will flow, as the whole history of 
mankind shows, more works and better works for the benefit of 
others than can come from the motives supplied by any code of 
ethics. 

In memory of another great preacher of this church let us 
recall the pregnant words upon this subject which he uttered at 
the celebration of a half century ago. " The vital principle of 
Christianity consists of the vindication it so triumphantly makes 
of the spiritual principle in man. It is a soul-religion, not only 
as distinguished from forms and rites, but also and still more as 
distinguished from a decent exterior, from a mere prudential 
conformity of the life to traditions and usages. It seeks to re- 
generate man ; and this regeneration can only be effected by 
penetrating as it does with its light into the mind, and with its 
purity into the heart, and by setting up its kingdom within. . . . 
The struggle always has been between faith and works ; be- 
tween the principle of religion in the soul, and the manifestation 



ADDRESS BY JOSIAH QUINCY. 95 

of it in conduct ; between the living spirit of piety, and dead 
mechanical conformity to fixed usages and forms." 

The hymn which we are about to sing to-day, as it was sung 
at the celebration of fifty years ago, seems to me in harmony 
with that conception of religion which was common alike to 
Wheelwright, the first preacher of our earliest settlement, and 
to Lunt, the gifted minister who stood in his place two hundred 
years later. After enjoying all of earthly greatness which his 
country could bestow, John Quincy Adams still placed the true 
end and purpose of life beyond the material world, and held 
himself justified rather by faith than by works. Time is in- 
deed, in liis words, " the measure but of change." Eternity is 
the reality, time the delusion. Time and change alike are 
but the forms of our human consciousness. Eternity is now, 
and time is merely the veil which hides it from us. Religion 
lifts a corner of the veil and gives us a point of view, if we 
will but take it, outside of time, outside of the world, outside of 
ourselves as human beings, — the only point of view from which 
the universe, otherwise so incomprehensible, can be in part at 
least understood. Not through time to eternity, but out of time 
to eternity, is the true thought. And to that noiv which is " in 
realms above " we can attain in this present life, as did some 
of our fathers who " worshipped in this mountain " of old, if we 
will seek out the true essence of that religion which has come 
down to us from them. Only as man conceives of himself not 
as an organism of matter, endowed for a time with a mysterious 
quality called life, but as an immortal spirit, passing through 
that form of consciousness which we call the world, but neither 
limited to it nor having his real home in it, does life acquire its 
true significance. To borrow again the words of Carlyle : 
" Sweep-away the illusion of time ! Are we not spirits, that are 
shaped into a body, into an appearance, and that fade away into 
air and invisibility ? This is no metaphor ; it is a simple scientific 
fact. We start out of nothingness, take figure and are appari- 
tions ; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is eternity." 



96 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

The religion of those who come after us may change as much 
in form as oar religion of to-day has changed from that of our 
ancestors ; but that our descendants will continue to have a 
religion, and that its essence will be the same two hundred and 
fifty years hence that it is to-day, and was two hundred and fifty 
years ago, we may rest well assured. I can close with no better 
wish for the future of this church of our fathers than that it 
may again number among its ministers some Wheelwright, with 
both the power and the courage to preach the spiritual truth 
and spare not, though his condemnation fall upon his fellow 
ministers and cause " combustion in church and commonwealth ; " 
among its laymen, some Coddington, ready to abandon home 
and worldly possessions rather than give up his convictions ; 
and among those from other places who here listen to the Word, 
some Plenry Vane, ready to vindicate the great principles of 
civil and religious liberty even by laying down his life upon 
the scaffold, with the calm fortitude taught by the gospel of 
Christ. 

The co-ngregation was invited to rise and join in sing- 
ing the hymn written for the two hundredth anniversary 
by John Quincy Adams. The great company present 
stood up and sang two verses with fervor. Then the 
Rev. Mr. Wilson spoke as follows : — 

About fifty years ago when the town of Quincy and all the 
towns of old Braintree celebrated their two hundredth anniver- 
sary, the citizens were disappointed in not securing President 
John Quincy Adams to deliver the oration. The affair was 
likely to go by default, when the young men of the town came 
to the rescue, and without much regard to the older citizens 
went ahead and arranged the programme. One of the orators 
selected was the Rev. George Whitney, son of the venerated 
Parson Whitney ; the young men's choice for poet was another 
young man, Christopher Pearse Cranch. He is our poet to-day, 



POEM BY CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 97 

his youthful spirit in no degree abated, his love for this church 
and town as great as ever. By name and descent he is our 
own, he is one of us ; and it is with much satisfaction I ex- 
tend your welcome to him on our two hundredth and fiftieth 
anniversary. 



POEM BY CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 

The mild autumnal day 
Is filled with visionary forms that pass 
Before our sight as in some magic glass. 

Along the horizon gray 
The dim procession of ancestral shades 

Appears, dissolves, and fades. 
Grave, sad-robed fathers of the Church and State, 
Matrons and mothers, mild-eyed and sedate, 
And sober-suited youths and home-bred maids. 

Pledged to maintain inviolate 
New England's earliest, dearest heritage, — 
The faith and conduct of that sterner age. 

Westward across the rough and unknown seas 
We see them, an advancing, spreading host, — 

Along the rocky coast 
And 'neath the forests of primeval trees 
Building their simple states and villages ; 
And in their midst, like castles of defence 
In mediseval days, to guard the tents 
And cottages of those who clustered round, 

Choosing a plot of ground 
Whereon they found a church, though called by a name 

Of more prosaic sound 
Than in the stately cities whence they came. 
Where proud cathedrals with their chanting choirs 

7 



98 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

Stretch their long aisles and lift their solemn spires. 

Here first of all they rear 
With pious hands and reverence austere 
Their house of worship and of brotherhood, 
Of prayer and praise and spiritual food, 
Symbol supreme of trust and faith sincere. 

Far back in shadowy lines the lives, the plans 

Of those old Puritans 
Lie sketched ; and though to us their acrid creeds 
Seem like the harsh and unripe fruits of spring, 
Fitter for ancient Hebrews than for needs 
Of Saxon men who fled from priest and king 
And rituals outworn, to seek across the sea 
A home for conscience and for liberty. 
Let us believe their virtues far outweighed 
Their faults, and note their sunshine, not their shade. 
True to the essence of the doctrines taught 
And to the lights they saw, they lived and wrought. 
Earnest and brave, in this their new abode 
They found amid the wilds a surer road 
Toward freedom, union, purer Church and State. 

Nothing effeminate 
Or base was here. No rank malarial dews 
Of courts corrupt unnerved their sturdy thews ; 
But like the keen salt breeze that swept along 

Their shores o'er rocks and sands. 
From unknown springs a spirit hale and strong 

Inspired their hearts and hands. 

Let not our wise noon-lighted century scorn 
The narrow opening of their clouded morn. 
The intolerance that allowed no light to shine 
Beside their own in their crypt-guarded shrine, 
Shut in and kept for future times a law 



POEM BY CHKISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 99 

Of life and duty grander than they saw. 

Our fathers sowed with stern humility, 

But knew not what the harvest was to be. 

More light, they said, would issue from God's book, 

Not knowing 't was the deeper, wiser look 

The soul took of itself that gave them eyes to see. 

From the rough gnarled root they planted here, 

Through storm and sun, through patient hope and fear, 

There grew a fair and ever-spreading tree. 

With roots fast grappling in the granite rocks. 

Unharmed by cold or drought or tempest shocks ; 

Fed by the sun and winds and seasons' change, 

It reared its trunk serenely tall and fair. 

Its boughs diverging in the upper air 

Of thought and liberty. 
Loaded with leaves and blossoms rich and strange, 
And promise of a fruitage yet to be 

In the long centuries of futurity. 

The slow-paced years and ages have moved on. 

Through life and death and change, through peace and war 

The vast historic eras come and gone ; 

And from the climes afar 
Primeval woods and savage-haunted coasts 

Filled with the gathering hosts. 
Till strengthening, widening, great, united, free, 
Stretches the mighty continent from sea to sea. 

And with increase and change what marvels rise 

Before our wondering eyes ! 
What new-found powers, what labyrinthine clews. 
What heights, what depths, what vast encircling views ! — 
Religion, science, art, mechanic skill. 
The enterprise of trade by seas and lands. 
The teeming farm, the factory's whirling mill ; 
Steam like a giant with a hundred hands ; 

Lore 



100 COMMEMOEATIVE SEKVICES. 

The all-recording press 
Brightening the dumb world's dreary loneliness. 
The voice and tone of distant friends brought near ; 
Sounds packed away for unborn ears to hear ; 
The lightning tamed, its blazing pinions furled, 

Talking around a world 
By science, law, humanity subdued 

To peaceful brotherhood ; 
Or linked to bands and armatures of steel 
Compelled to tasks of lever and of wheel. 
Or caged in moony globes with dazzling ray 

Turning the night to day. 
No chemic power, unchallenged, undecoyed, 
No blind telluric force left unemployed ; 
All matter subject to the imperial mind, 
Prompt to the advantage of all human kind ; 
The mystic stars themselves reveal to man 

In prismic hues defined 
Their secret essence and their primal plan. 
All Nature stoops and serves. The very sun 
We apprentice as a painter. Earth and heaven are won 
To run the errands of man's shrewdest thought. 
In this vast net the universe is caught ; 
While in a larger air his spirit tends 

Toward diviner ends, 
Dissolving old beliefs, affirming new, 
• Leaving the false behind to grasp the true ; 
Or ranging through the sister realm of art 

Far from the crowded mart. 
Pursuing forms of beauty and of power, 
Like bees from flower to flower. 
And e'en Theology, resisting long 
The light, shut in her fortress grim and strong, 

Endures at last the change. 
And through all sects assumes a loftier range, 



POEM BY CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 101 

Untangling witli wise skill the threads perplexed 
Of fundamental truth and Bible text, 
Dividing the pure essence from the old 
Imprisoning form, the earth-dross from the gold, 
The frigid product from the warm intent. 
The transitory from the permanent ; 
No more mid strife of Antinomian wars, 
Fearing the fading of its guiding stars. 
From miracles and legends quaint unbound. 
No mud of Genesis can clog the feet 
Of those who tread the undisputed ground 
Of natural law, eternal and complete, 
And between science and religion see 
No conflict, but perpetual amity. 

Thus freed from close- walled alleys of the past 

For broad highways toward vistas grand and vast, 

For us the gates of knowledge open wide, 

And the soul's shining leaders side by side 

Lead onward far beyond the clouded zone 

Of dogmas long outgrown. 

A broader faith has risen above the rim 

Of the horizon, sad, perplexed, and dim. 

Wherein our fathers saw 
The limits of religion, truth, and law. 
The frowning visage of a creed austere. 
The visions born of superstitious fear. 
The paralyzing touch that laid its ban 
On the free instincts of the natural man. 
The curse that like a shadow followed him 

With sure relentless pace. 
The imagined sins, detectives vague and grim. 
The dark satanic mask upon the face 
Of an all-loving Father, fade away 

In a serener day. 



102 COMMEMOEATIVE SERVICES. 

No stern, inevitable doom forbids 

The guests of heaven and earth to share their feast ; 

No sad-eyed morning opes its heavy lids. 

The kindling day is all one boundless east 

For us, if only true 
To the great lights that broaden on our view. 

But let us not forget how firm and fast 
The present is still rooted in the past ; 
Nor, while rejoicing in our ampler space, 
The slow steep steps behind us fail to trace, — 
To note how gradual is the growth of truth, 
How old experience dates its forms from youth. 
So, looking back to those who built the shrine, 
And met to hear half truths they deemed divine, 
"We know our fathers planted here the root 
Of which the sons possess the flower and fruit. 
And fitting 't is we celebrate to-day 
With music, wise discourse, and poet's lay, 

And floral offerings gay. 
The first small gathering of one little band, 
The simple house in a wild alien land. 
Whose spiritual corner-stone we trust 
Still stands, although its founders sleep in dust. 

These walls, why are they reared ? 

Not only for old memories long endeared. 

Nor to perpetuate 
Sacred traditions of an olden date ; 
But for truth loosed from tyrannizing creeds, 
And proved in doctrines less than in the deeds ; 
For weekly interludes of thought and prayer, 
Seclusions of release from work and care. 
Serene transitions from the world of sense 
To the heart's inmost fortress of defence ; 




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^iQPtmd PrcRidcnt of tlir United StM«a. 

Born ft Octolicr 173A. 

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POEM BY CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 103 

For upright lives, for strength and love and grace ; 
For service of our country and our race ; 
For symbols of the unseen world that lies 
About and in us, loftier than the skies. 
Deeper than earth and sea, amid the war 
Of worldly aims the soul's unchanging star 

Of safety in the stress 
And tide of passion and of selfishness. 

And gladly would we note the noble lives, 
The names whose memory in this place survives 
In golden gleams along the historic thread 
That binds the living to the immortal dead : 
Those who through stormy days of battles grim 
The struggling nation's counsels wisely led ; 
And when her pathway grew perplexed and dim, 
And help was far, and hope seemed almost fled. 

Lifted her drooping head. 
Those who as rulers and ambassadors maintained 
The strength, the truth, the honor we had gained, 
And through successive generations made 
One name illustrious, which shall never fade ; 
Joined with another of an old renown, — 
The name that blends with Harvard's classic shade. 
And syllables your old familiar town. 

Nor less should we forget the worthy sons 

And daughters who through centuries lived and died 

Unknown to fame. The muse of history shuns 

Their hidden records ; gathered side by side 

In yonder burial-ground, they leave no signs 

Save in the half-obliterated lines 
That tell their birth, their death. Yet not in vain, 
Fathers and mothers, were your humble lives ; 
Each in its turn an influence that survives. 



104 COMMEMORATIVE SEEVICES. 

A light that shines again 
In sacred memories, and in hearths and homes, 
Vital as greater names that gild historic tomes. 

And here permit, if memory recalls 
How fifty years ago within these walls, — 

Ah, crude and callow time ! — 
The voice you hear intoned a youthful rhyme 
To celebrate the founding of this town. 
Then wearing its well-earned two-centuried crown. 
Ah, fleeting years of youth ! Ah, passage strange 
Of scenes since then ; mysterious change on change ! 
The venerated forms that linked my life 
With ancestors revered ; the joy, the strife, 
The blithe companionship of younger days, 
The opening vistas and the untried ways 
All fade in broken visions of the past ; 
Yet in the mould of later years recast 
They take a shape that old experience lends. 
Life is not loss, but gain and growth to ends 
Youth could not know, and never could foresee. 
And for such faith what shrine more fit than this, 
Where past and present meet as with a kiss, — 
This temple consecrated in the fires 
Of toil and thought through a long line of sires ; 
Here where the old beliefs bloom out in free 
Full blossom in the soul's calm liberty. 
And thoughts unknown to ancient Church or State 
Through daily life now throb and penetrate. 

Here may the newer faith accept and hold 
All sound and reverent virtue of the old ; 
No lamps of vital worship left untrimmed, 

No high ideal dimmed ; 
No genuine buddings of a noble life 



ADDEESS BY THE REV. C. R. ELIOT. 105 

Hurt by the honest thinker's pruning knife, 
While thought and feeling with united aim 
Kindle and keep alive the sacred flame. 

Be such the mission of the church, to link 
Young hearts that feel with older minds that think, — 
Reason and faith fast wedded, bound yet free, 
Divinely human life their progeny. 

Here may the vital truth that supersedes 

The dead forgotten creeds 
Warm and persuade the hearts of young and old, 
And prompt to lofty thoughts and noble deeds : 
A living church, — a Christian brotherhood 
In all high effort for the public good. 
So may this temple gather in its fold. 
Conspiring with all agencies that mould 
The race to higher life, till it shall stand 

A beacon in the land. 
And in the coming centuries ever shine 
Steadfast, undimmed, still lit by truth divine. 

The Rev. Mr. Wilso?^ : I introduce to you now the 
pastor of one of the oldest churches in New England ; a 
church with which this church has been always closely 
connected, — the Rev. C. R. Eliot of the First Church, 
Dorchester. 

ADDEESS BY THE EEV. C. E. ELIOT. 

I BRING you greetings from the old church which has stood up- 
on Meeting-House Hill — the present structure and its predeces- 
sors — since 1670. I bring them to you from the church which 
has walked along the years side by side with yours, and which 
nine years before your church was formed had its beginning. 



106 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

I come to bring those greetings from a people who have to- 
ward you, as always, feelings of friendship and sympathy. To 
bring you these greetings is a pleasant duty to me, the minister 
of the First Church. Fortunately it requires very few words to 
say some of the very best things ; and so I can say it to you in 
the few words necessary, that we, the people of the First Church 
in Dorchester, greet you of Quincy, and assure you of our friend- 
ship and Christian love. 

Thoughts come crowding upon me which, if time permitted, it 
might be well to speak. Perhaps you will permit me to say one 
or two things. Not very long ago there came into a home not a 
thousand miles from where I live a very old cradle, built of the 
strongest oak, for a very new comer out of the spirit land. I 
have had the privilege of looking often upon that bit of house- 
hold furniture, and I have thought that if its oaken panels could 
speak to us, what stories they could tell ! They could tell of a 
home far across the waters, long, long ago ; they could tell of a 
little gathering at Plymouth, England, where a few earnest men 
and women came together to listen to words of their pastor, John 
White, and to be sent across the water to form the colony here, 
near to you, in Dorchester. They could tell of that long voyage 
from March until June, when upon the great cradle of the deep 
they were rocked through days and weeks and months, until to 
these shores they came at last in safety, and the good ship 
" Mary and John " cast anchor near Nantasket. These oaken 
panels of the old cradle could tell of many things besides. 
They could tell us, perhaps, some of the things which to-day 
have not yet been spoken here, — they could tell us of the early 
settlers of this land in which we live. We honor the great men 
whose names have come down on the pages of history, — men 
who have done great and conspicuous work in this country. 
This old cradle could tell us of the tenderness of mothers' love, 
of the faithfulness of many a sister in this land, of noble women 
to whom has been due much of the honor, much of the strength, 
much of the sincerity, earnestness, and nobility of the men who 



ADDKESS BY THE EEV. C. R. ELIOT. 107 

were able to lay the foundations of this commonwealth, of this 
nation, and of our church. It is to honor them, the women of 
those early days, that I speak. 

I hold in my hand a letter, in fac-simile, of one of your states- 
men whose name has been spoken here to-day, — John Quincy 
Adams. One sentence from that may be a part of the greeting 
from the old church in Dorchester. It was written in 1838: 
" I live in the faith and hope of the progressive advancement of 
Christian liberty, and expect to abide by the same in death." 
It may be our word to you, and yours may be the same to us, — 
an exhortation that we all, wherever we worship, wherever we 
live, may worship and live in the faith and hope of the progres- 
sive advancement of Christian liberty, and abide by the same in 
death. " A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday 
when it is past, or as a watch in the night." The roots of 
American liberty had not their place one hundred years, or two 
hundred and fifty years ago, or five hundred or one thousand 
years ago, but far back of that. Ages have passed, and slowly 
the work of God has been done. God has brought the blind by 
a way they knew not, and has led them and is leading them in 
paths they have not known. Jesus little dreamed of the future 
progress and the wondrous history of Christianity. The Amer- 
ican revolution found its birth only after those who first spoke 
here noble words for liberty had passed away. The war for the 
preservation of our Union was not entered upon to bring free- 
dom to the slave, yet by paths unknown and to ends unsought 
has the nation been led. " I am found of them that ask not for 
me ; I am known of them that sought me not." So was it when 
the Puritans came to our shores ; they were not believers in 
liberty, but they opened the way unconsciously for us ; " they 
builded better than they knew." 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson : In the record book of the old 
First Church of Roxbury there is a long obituary poem 



108 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

upon the death of the wife of our first minister, William 
Tompson ; other entries show the close connection of the 
two churches. I am going to ask you to listen for a few 
moments to the present minister of that church, the Rev. 
James de Normandie. 

ADDRESS BY EEV. JAMES DE NORMANDIE. 

It is late to ask this interested but weary parish to listen to 
what it was my intention to say. But I will detain you only 
for a moment. It may be a matter of passing regret that the 
First Church of Christ in Roxbury and the First Church of 
Christ in Quincy should have begun their history by a differ- 
ence which amounted almost to a persecution ; and especially 
that the apostle Eliot, by far the most commanding figure in 
the ecclesiastical history of New England, — so gentle, so sweet, 
so devoted, who for the trouble that it would cost him to untie 
his handkerchief, could fling his whole quarter's salary to one 
asking him for charity ; who with bleeding feet wandered day 
after day through those woods to preach the gospel to the 
Indians, — that the apostle Eliot should have been willing to 
persecute his Brother Wheelwright in this church. But if that 
is a matter of passing regret, it is something at which to rejoice 
that such a thing could not happen to-day ; and that these 
churches are now, as they have been so long, and as we trust 
they may be for centuries to come, bound together by that spirit 
of liberal Christianity which for years they have so bravely main- 
tained. The apostle Eliot, as I have said, was a commanding 
figure in New England history. When Dean Stanley came to 
this country a few years ago, and was asked what places he 
wanted to see in America, he replied, " Two : the church where 
the apostle Eliot preached, and Plymouth Rock." I cannot 
but believe, in looking through the records of his life, that the 
apostle Eliot was a little unwilling to do what he did do at that 



ADDRESS BY EEV. JAMES DE NORMANDIE. 109 

time. We have however to remember that he and his colleague 
were Puritans of the Puritans ; and we know that no sincere, de- 
voted Puritan really meant that there should be any liberty of 
conscience, that anybody should worship outside the doctrines 
which they so bravely defended, in which they lived, and for 
which they were willing to die. The early records of these 
churches are much the same in their nature, and a review of 
them for the past two centuries might be made very helpful as 
well as most interesting to this congregation, as you, sir, have 
shown. They tell us, these records, of a race of men who were 
willing to sacrifice everything for the spiritual realities in which 
they believed, — of a race of men that knew no sacrifice too 
great, who stopped at no stress of weather, and no weariness of 
week-day work, to gather into the sanctuary. Why, we find 
mention in these early records of persons coming six, eight, 
ten, and even twelve miles, walking to church on Sunday, 
and carrying all the way their little children unable to walk. 
And then nothing would keep them back, — no little differ- 
ence of opinion among themselves, no little dissension with 
the minister even, would keep them back from the altar of 
worship. It is told in the early history of the church of Bed- 
ford in this State that one Saturday afternoon the minister 
was heard to have a pretty sharp contention about some fences 
and cattle with one of his parishioners ; and the contention was 
heard by some of the worshippers, and one of them remarked 
that he ventured to say that that neighbor of the minister 
would not be found in the church any more. But tlie next 
Sunday morning he was in his pew as usual ; and after the ser- 
vices, one who had heard the sharp quarrel of the day before 
said to him, "We thought we should never see you in church 
after those fierce words." " I 'd have you know," was the reply, 
" that though I did have a quarrel with my pastor, I did not 
have a quarrel with the gospel." What strikes us most of all in 
looking over these records is the earnest observance of the Sab- 
bath which ran all through that history. There is the early 



110 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 

record of a law of Massachusetts Colony that "for the better 
observance of Sunday it is hereby ordered that on Saturday 
afternoon, at three of the clock, all those who inhabit the plan- 
tation shall surcease from their various employments and gather 
for catechizing, as the minister may direct." These early 
records are not only interesting, they might be made exceed- 
ingly helpful ; and while we pay our tribute to the early fathers 
of our churches, what remains for us is to consecrate ourselves 
to the spiritual realities for which they lived. What is it to 
us if we join in these historical memories, and yet forget the 
work for which they lived and in which they died ? 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson : I have great pleasure in in- 
troducing the Rev. Joseph Osgood, pastor of the First 
Church in Cohasset, — the oldest settled minister of our 
denomination in this vicinity, the dear friend of Dr. 
Lunt and of Mr. Wells. 

ADDEESS BY EEV. JOSEPH OSGOOD. 

The experience of Cohasset has been almost precisely the same 
as the experience of Quincy or Braintree church with regard 
to the First Church in Boston. It was only after long years 
and earnest trouble that the General Court ordered the forma- 
tion of the Cohasset church. This Cohasset church has always 
been a neighbor church. The remembrance of Peter Whitney 
was very frequently recalled in the Cohasset church. My im- 
mediate predecessor, Mr. Harrison Gray Otis Fitz, was brought 
up under Peter Whitney and Mr. Lunt. He died after a short 
ministry ; he was a man of pure heart, earnest spirit, and one 
very much beloved by the congregation. I remember with great 
interest my long connection with Mr. Lunt. I was associated 
with him in various ways, and also with Mr. Wells, who was 
one of my most intimate friends and associates in the ministry. 



/ 



ALTERT 




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ADDRESS BY REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD. Ill 

But I come before you also as a descendant of the first minister 
of Braintree, William Tompson. My mother was christened Eliza- 
beth Tompson in memory of this connection ; and I have been 
reminded by his early experiences and mission of what seems 
to me to have been a kind of mission of the Quincy church. 
You who have looked into the history will remember that he 
was sent as a missionary to Virginia. After a voyage of three 
months he arrived on the shores of Virginia. His labors did 
not seem to have been very successful there, though he brought 
back one convert, who was highly prized in the early Puritan 
church. The Virginians were rather glad to get rid of him, 
and did not wish to have their peculiar religious institutions 
interfered with. This was one of the earliest missionary opera- 
tions in the country, and it is significant as indicating in a cer- 
tain sense the spirit of the Quincy church. Years passed by, 
and another of your citizens was sent; and it was his high 
privilege to nominate as the commander of the armies of the 
Revolution a Virginian, — thus returning good for evil, and per- 
forming in a certain way, in a true spirit, that kind of mission 
which Mr. Tompson was sent to perform in the early history 
of the church. Has it not been one of the great privileges of 
this church to send forth throughout the country words of 
religious and spiritual freedom, words of pure patriotism, words 
of high statesmanship ; and has not this church been carrying 
out the very work which in the ministry of the First Church 
was inaugurated ? I remember talking with Charles Francis 
Adams the elder, just as he was about to start for his impor- 
tant mission as a member of Congress, about the future of 
political parties, and about the organizing of the House of which 
he was a member, — the House which was organized only after 
a long struggle. Have you ever thought what effect has been 
produced by these men speaking for civil liberty, for pure 
statesmanship, and exerting themselves as they have done for 
the progress, freedom, and prosperity of the country ? As these 
services are about to close, can I say any better word to you for 



112 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 



your future than to take example from the past, and as your 
fathers have been, so try to be yourselves in the future, carry- 
ing the highest principles of spiritual, religious, and civil free- 
dom and uprightness and national honor into all the States of 
the Union, and not only into the States of the Union, but also 
into all parts of the world ? For our civilization and our culture 
are such that a true word in behalf of religion, in behalf of free- 
dom, in behalf of patriotism, in behalf of the highest interests 
of man, is flashed over the whole civilized world, and may be 
like good seed sown in good ground, producing a hundredfold 
to the glory of God. 

The entire congregation joined in singing " Old Hun- 
dred," and the services were closed with the benediction 
pronounced by the Rev. C. R. Eliot in the absence of the 
Rev. Edward Norton. 



During the exercises the pastor asked all those to 
stand who had been present fifty years before at the 
two hundredth anniversary. It was ascertained that 
the following persons participated in the celebration of 
both anniversaries : — 



Miss Nancy Brackett, 
Samuel E. Brackett, 
Miss E. C. Adams, 
Mrs. Sarah C. Underwood, 
Mrs. Ebenezer Adams, 
Edwin W. Marsh, 
J. Franklin Burrell, 
Mrs. Jos. E. French, 
Dexter Pierce, 
Christopher P. Cranch, 
Mrs. Ann E. Baxter, 
Susanna G. Field, 
Lucy A. Floyd, 



Belief B. Floyd, 

Wm. L. Brackett, 

Mrs. Wm. L. Brackett, 

Mrs. Amos Warren Stetson, 

Susanna B. Marsh, 

Geo. L. Gill, 

Mrs. Geo. L. Gill, 

Edwin Gill, 

Franklin Curtis, 

Mrs. M. a. Perkins, 

Mrs. Chas. A. Spear, 

Mrs. Adams Whitney, 

Miss Ann Curtis. 



LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 



AVERY large number of congratulatory letters were 
received by the Committee on Invitations. Most 
of these are interesting, some of them remarkably so ; 
and to leave any unpublished bears a look almost of 
a lack of due appreciation. But in order to bring these 
pages within the designed limits a selection had to be 
made. So, for the most part, there are here preserved 
letters illustrating historical facts, or from persons con- 
nected in an especial way with the Quincy Church and 
Quincy people. 

LETTER FROM WHEELWRIGHT'S EXETER CHURCH. 

Exeter, N. H., Sept. 18, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you most heartily for the invitation to 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the church which 
Rev. John Wheelwright ministered to, as first pastor, at Mount 
Wollaston, now Quincy. It would give me much pleasure to be 
present, if possible, — to look upon the faces of some of the men 
who have inherited from Wheelwright his sturdy independence 
of character and resistance to tyranny, whether royal or ecclesi- 
astical, and for a few hours to breathe with you the very atmos- 
phere of freedom. 

The New England of to-day is under immense obligation to 
Wheelwright and to other heretics of like indomitable spirit, as 
well as to your famous Adams family, for the privilege of think- 



114 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION". 

ing and speaking its deepest and truest convictions as to what- 
ever concerns the welfare of man. 

Twice at least the Christian Church has held full sway. Once 
in Europe in the Middle Ages, under the Catholic supremacy ; 
and again in Massachusetts, under the Puritan supremacy. To 
what were its failures due ? I think, in the latter case, Mr. 
Brooks Adams, speaking in the mildest terms, would say, to the 
misinterpretation of the spirit of the Founder of Christianity. 

But enough of this. I do not quite see why you celebrate 
your anniversary in 1889. Why not 1886 ? Unless I am in 
error in the matter, according to " Winthrop's Journal " and 
the " Short Story," several of the Boston communion, who had 
desired Wheelwright's settlement over the Boston church in 
conjunction with Wilson and Cotton (which settlement Win- 
throp resisted and prevented), were desirous to form a church 
at Mount Wollaston, where they resided and cultivated farms ; 
and it was voted without objection, upon their application, that 
Wheelwright be assigned to them as their preacher. He at 
once, in October 1636, at the age of forty-four, commenced his 
pastoral labors at that place, — afterwards called Braintree, now 
Quincy. So far as appears. Wheelwright discharged his duties 
faithfully and acceptably at Mount Wollaston, until he was ban- 
ished from Massachusetts in November, 1637. In April, 1638, 
he was negotiating with the Indians for a tract of land in and 
around what is now Exeter, where he established in that year 
the First Church. But perhaps you have some most valid 
reason for the present date of celebration. 

Our own celebration in June, 1888, of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the town and church was full of interest 
to all our people, and an occasion long to be remembered. 

I sincerely hope your own celebration will be worthy of the 
occasion and of the distinguished men who have added lustre 
not only to your town and State, but to our country. 

Very respectfully. Swift Byington. 

{Pastor First Church, Exeter.) 



LETTEES OF CONGRATULATION. 115 



FROM THE REV. A. C. NICKERSON, OF EXETER. 

Exeter, N. H., Sept. 23, 1889. 

To Messrs. Charles F. Adams, Lewis Bass, Edward H. Dewson, and 
William L. Faxon, Committee. 

Gentlemen, — From a New England town which a year ago 
celebrated its quarter millennial I send you greeting on the 
occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first 
parish of Quincy, Mass. Your first minister, the Rev. John 
Wheelwright, a graduate of Sidney College, Cambridge, Eng- 
land, was also the first pastor here, and the founder of our 
town. The same religious freedom which here he sought it 
has been the province and tlie pleasure of your church to 
maintain, and as your altars, sanctified by the dust of two of 
America's strongest and freest sons, shall resound with fervent 
praises, we tender to you and your parish our earnest 
felicitations. 

Very respectfully yours, 

A. C. NiCKERSON. 
{Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Exeter, N. H.) 



FROM THE REV. EDWARD E. HALE, D.D. 

RoxBURY, Mass., Sept. 17, 1889. 

My dear Wilson, — I am very sorry to say that I cannot be 
here on the 29th. I have an engagement of some time standing 
which I cannot change. 

You have my best congratulations on so remarkable an anni 
versary, and my best hopes that for a quarter of a millennium 
more the church may be as useful and as prosperous. 

Always truly yours, 

Edw. E. Hale. 



116 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AND "DOROTHY Q." 

Bkverly Farms, Mass., Sept. 18, 1889. 

My dear Sir, — I regret that I shall not be able to have the 
pleasure of being present at the services on the 29th of Septem- 
ber. I feel as if the shade of mj great-grandmother, Dorothy 
Quincj, would be there, with those of many others whose lin- 
eage I share by my maternal ancestry. 

I was pleased to learn from your note that " Dorothy Q." — 
my Dorothy, not Governor Hancock's, who was her niece — was 
born in 1709, — just a hundred years before I came into atmos- 
pheric existence. 

I trust we shall have a full account of the commemoration, 
and shall look forward to it with much interest. 

Believe me, dear sir, 

Very truly yours, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



FROM THE REV. R. S. STORRS, D.D. 

Sunset Ridge, Shelter Island Heights, 

Sept. 18, 1889. 

Messrs, Charles F. Adams, Lewis Bass, Edward H. Dewson, William 
L. Faxon, Committee. 

Gentlemen, — I should be most happy to accept the invitation 
with which you have honored me, and to attend the services in 
commemoration of the completion of two hundred and fifty 
years in the history of the first church within the ancient limits 
of Braintree ; but public duties require my presence elsewhere 
on the day of your proposed celebration. 

Your stone temple, built in my boyhood, used to excite my 
admiring awe whenever I passed it in my father's chaise or in 
Mr. Gillett's stage-coach. I thought it then probably a rival of 




DOROTHY Q. 

(From the Original Painting.] 



DOROTHY Q. 



Grandmother's niotlier : her age, 1 giies.*, 
Thirteen suiiiuiers, or fouiethiug less ; 
Girlish bust, but womanlj- air; 
Smooth, square forehead with ujirolled hair, 
Lips that lover lias never Ivisseil ; 
Taper fingers and slender wjist ; 
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade, — 
So they painted the little maid. 

On her hand a parrot green 

Sits unmoving and broods serene. 

Hold up the canvas full in view, — 

Look 1 there 's a rent the light shines through, 

Dark with a century's fringe of dust : 

That was a I!ed-Coafs rapier-thrust I 

Such is the tale the lady old — 

Dorothy's daughter's daughter — told. 



Who the painter was none may tell, — 
One whose best was not over well ; 
Hard and dry, it must be confessed. 
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed ; 
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, 
Dainty colors of red and white, 
And in her slender shape are sten 
Hint and pi'oniise of stately mien. 

Look unt on her with eyes of scorn, — • 
Dorothy Q. was a lady born ' 
Ay, since the galloping Normans came, 
England's annals have known her name ! 
And still to the three-hilled rebel town 
Dear is that ancient name's renown : 
For many a civic wreath they won. 
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



B()i;x IX Tin; old Qiincy ]\Iaxsiox. 

Dorathy. y" Daiiuhter of Ednuiiul Qiiinsey, E?(l^, & ]\P Dorathv, liis wife, 
was born v'' ■l*'^ Jainiarv, 1 70!). — Brainlree liecorch. 



Baptized p.y thk Ef.v. Joskph Marsh. 

Colonel Quincey's family all l)aj)tize(l, Ajn'il 30, 1721. — First Church 
Records. 

Admitted to Full CoMMtxiox by the Rev. John- Hax-cock. 

Dorothy, danahter of Col. Qtiincy, May 2s, 1727. — First Church Beconls. 

Married to Edward Jaek-;on, of Boston, December 7, 1 73S. 
Died in 1 702. 



Her son. Jonathan Jackson, had a dauohter Sarah, who married the Rev. 
Abiel Holmes, father of Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 117 

Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem, with Rev. Mr. Whitney for its 
high priest. This early impression might not be altogether 
reproduced if I were to be with you now ; but I hope that a 
Christian prosperity and usefulness, solid and spacious, may 
mark the progress of your Society through its second quarter- 
millennium. 
, Very truly yours, R. S. Stores. 



FROM THE KEV. THOMAS HILL, D.D. 

PoKTLAND, Me., Sept. 23, 1889. 
To Charles F. Adams, Lewis Bass, and others. Committee. 

Brethren in Christ, — I am sorry that it will not be in my 
power to join with you in the celebration to which you so kindly 
invite me for next Sunday afternoon. My interest in the First 
Church, Quincy, goes back nearly, if not quite, to the time when 
my first interest in national politics made me grieve that one of 
its most honored members failed of re-election to the Presidency 
of the United States ; and that interest has by no means been 
diminished by the very pleasant recollections which I carry now 
for nineteen years of the kind way in which many attempts to 
serve you were received during the temporary absence of your 
pastor. 

Very truly yours, Thomas Hill. 



FROM THE REV. CALEB D. BRADLEE, D.D., PH.D. 

Boston, Sept. 17, 1889. 
Lewis Bass, Esq., Quincy, Mass. 

Dear Sir, — I have received this day your very kind invita- 
tion, in behalf of the committee, to attend the services in com- 
memoration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of 
the foundation of the First Church, Quincy, that are to take 
place on Sunday, September 29, at 2 p. m. ; and although my 



118 LETTERS OP CONGRATULATION. 

engagements on the day named will be such as not to permit me 
to be present, none the less do I thank you, and those whom you 
represent, for the courtesy extended, and rejoice with you in 
your sacred memories of the past, in your great success in the 
present under the consecrated teachings of your faithful pastor, 
and in your glorious hopes for the future. 

Respectfully, 

Caleb D. Bradlee. 



FROM MR. CHARLES BRECK, AGED mNETY-TWO. 

To Lewis Bass, Esq. For the Committee of Invitation for the Celebration 
of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Church in 
Quincy. 

Gentlemen, — For your kindness in remembering me you 
have my sincere thanks. Under other circumstances I should 
have been most happy to have joined you in celebrating the day ; 
but the weight of almost fourscore and twelve years admon- 
ishes me to be very careful about exposing myself in such public 
meetings. There are probably but very few beside myself who 
can remember attending the old church longer than I can. It 
is seventy-eight years ago last spring since I first attended wor- 
ship in that church. I remember its situation and many of its 
occupants very well, — the venerable and never-to-be-forgotten 
Rev. Peter Whitney in the pulpit, beside him the venerable 
James Brackett, with his ear-trumpet, that no sound or word 
should be lost. The deacons' seats below were occupied by 
Deacons Veasie and I think Spear ; in the pews the venerable 
John Adams, Ex-President of the United States ; and oft beside 
him in later years his honorable son, J. Q. Adams, who was one 
of the most attentive listeners to the discourses that I ever 
noticed ; the Hon. Josiah Quincy, and many other distinguished 
characters, with their families. In the choir there was Heze- 
kiah Bass with his large bass-viol, John Pray with his fiddle. 



LETTEES OF CONGRATULATION. 119 

Capt. Josiah Bass with his noble voice to lead the singing, old 
Mr. Hayden, tything-man, with his long pole to keep us boys in 
order, and with which the disorderly were very sure to receive 
a smart rap. 

And when I compare those times with the present, I could but 
wish that I was able to attend your celebration and hear some- 
thing of its origin and growth to the time which I remember. 
There is one thing which I often think of when I compare the 
old churches — with their bare wooden seats, when the women 
were obliged to carry foot-stoves filled with coals to keep from 
freezing, and the men and boys sat shivering through a long 
service, with the thermometer near or quite at zero — with the 
costly churches of the present day, warmed to summer heat 
throughout, their neat and comfortable seats, and short services : 
does pure religion keep pace with the other improvements ? If 
so, all may be well. But when in the silent watches of the night 
I am conning over these things, and taking myself for an exam- 
ple, I think there is great room for improvement before I can 
hear those joyful words, ""Well done, good and faithful." These 
things are worth pondering upon and remembering by the young 
as well as by the old. 

In that old church I heard the first temperance discourse 
which I can remember, some seventy or more years ago. The 
Rev. Mr. Norton, of Weymouth I think, had exchanged with the 
Rev. Mr. Whitney. In his discourse he gave the number of in- 
habitants of a certain town, without naming it (some supposed it 
was Quincy, and that it was a plan to administer a rebuke which 
Mr. Whitney did not wish to do himself), and the large quantity 
of liquors which were consumed there yearly, and the misery 
which was occasioned thereby. Rum-drinking was so common 
in those days that the discourse made but little impression, except 
to be ridiculed ; yet we trust that in after years his good advice, 
by one, at least, was not forgotten, and we trust never will be. 

Charles Breck. 

Milton, Sept. 22, 1889. 



120 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 



FROM THE REV. HENRY A. MILES, D.D. 

HiNGHAM, Sept. 18, 1889. 
To Mr. Lewis Bass, of the Committee of the First Church in Quincy. 

Dear Sir, — I am honored by the invitation to attend the 
services commemorative of the two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary of the Quincy church. 

None of our oldest churches have inspired me with a pro- 
founder respect. It is not merely the eminent men whose 
names are indissolubly connected with it, nor my recollections 
of the sainted Lunt, — the only one of your pastors whom I much 
knew, — but quite as much the consistent spirit, the unity of pur- 
pose, which has run through its whole history, never locked up 
in an unprogressive theology, and never opening its doors to the 
vagaries of radicalism. 

As I pass in the train through your new city I never need 
the shining dome on your church to remind me of the historical 
glory that covers that temple. 

I am slowly recovering from a protracted illness, and have as 
yet gone only a few rods from my house. It will be impossible 
for me to be with you on the 29th instant, and I can only send 
to you my heartiest and best wishes. 

Very cordially yours, 

Henry A. Miles. 



FROM JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Dear Sir, — It will be a great gratification to me to attend 
the delivery of your occasional discourse on Sunday the 22d, 
and an equal disappointment that by reason of an engagement 
already entered into to spend the 29th at Wareham, I shall not 
be able to be present at the celebration. 

Yours truly, J. Q. Adams. 

Sept. 21, 18S9. 




THE ADAMS MANSION. 




A CORNER IN THE DRAWING ROOM OF THE ADAMS MANSION 



HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON. 



LETTERS OF CONGEATULATION. 121 

FROM THE PILGRD^IS' CHURCH AT PLYMOUTH. 

Plymouth, Mass., Sept. 26, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass, Quincy, Mass. 

Dear Sir, — It is with regret that I am compelled to decline 
the invitation to be present at the services of commemoration to 
be held in the First Church in Quincy on Sunday next. 
The duties of my own pulpit require my presence here. 
The First Parish in Plymouth sends greeting and congratu- 
lations to her younger sister, with best wishes for continued 
prosperity. 

Sincerely yours, 

Chas. p. Lombard. 



FROM THE REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 

Mountain Cottage, Whitefield, N. H., 
Sept. 20, 1889. 
Lewis Bass, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I desire through you to acknowledge with 
thanks your kind invitation to attend the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the First Church of Quincy, — an occa- 
sion of sacred interest and which must be in every respect a 
most memorable occasion. 

Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to participate 
in such a commemoration ; but I exceedingly regret that the 
condition of my health is such as to render it impossible. In 
thought and in spirit I shall be with you, cherishing with you 
grateful remembrance of those remarkable and illustrious men 
who have gone forth from that church to fill with honor the 
most responsible stations in the gift of their country, and to 
leave behind them names which the nation and the world de- 
light — and ever will delight — to hold in the highest veneration 
and gratitude. While they were beloved by the church, they 



122 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 

were also the benefactors both of their country and the world. 
The associations awakened by such a commemoration must in- 
evitably strike their roots deep, and spread their influences far 
and wide. 

No church, I cannot but think, on this whole continent, has 
reason to cherish with such gratitude the memories of the past. 

To be present at such a commemoration would be the great- 
est possible privilege, which nothing but the condition of my 
health could cause me to forego. With many thanks for your 
kind remembrance, 

I am, most respectfully and sincerely, yours, 

R. C. Waterston. 



FROM THE REV. G. M. BARTOL. 

Lancaster, Mass., Sept. 27, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass, Quincy. 

Dear Sir, — The invitation of the First Church of Quincy, 
by its committee, for the 29th instant, was received with un- 
usual pleasure. 

Any retrospect of the two hundred and fifty years now so 
near completion must be a gratifying one, bearing witness to 
repeated and successful efforts for the extension of civil, re- 
ligious, and industrial freedom, of just and humane principles, 
and of knowledge and intelligence among the mass of the people 
by improved methods of instruction and the multiplication of 
free libraries. In the promotion of all these ends a long line 
of good and wise and faithful men connected with your religious 
society have borne a noteworthy share. And surely it is well 
that the chain which unites its coming anniversary with the 
memories of what they were and what they have done should be 
strengthened and brightened, as it will be, by your proposed 
observance. 

Any commemoration which makes the past predominate over 



LETTEES OF CONGRATULATION. 123 

the present and the future, or which makes more of the date of an 
event than of the event itself, — forgetting that there is no such 
thing as the precise fixing of a date, because no almanac of ours 
can give us a perfect measure of time, — is false and superstitious ; 
but a commemoration which associates the particular occasion 
with events that illustrate important principles, is legitimate, and 
wholesome in its effects. It inculcates those principles more 
forcibly upon us. It makes us feel the unity of the past with 
the present, and of the present with the future, the unity of all 
being, and the unity of all portions of the great providential 
plan which is ever working out the purposes for which we were 
placed where we are. 

Be pleased to accept herewith an assurance of our cordial 
thanks for your thoughtful remembrance of the First Church of 
Lancaster. I am sorry to be obliged to add my sincere regret 
in finding that other engagements must prevent me from avail- 
ing myself of a privilege which I should so highly esteem. 

With earnest desires that the occasion may prove as pleasant 
and profitable to all interested as you yourselves can wish, 
Very respectfully and truly, 

George M. Bartol. 



FROM THE HOX. JOHN D. LONG. 

Boston, Sept. 18, 1889. 
Dear Mr. Wilson, — I regret very much that I cannot avail 
myself of your very kind invitation to the church commemora- 
tion at Quincy on the 29th ; but I expecb to be away on that 
Sunday, and my engagements are such that I cannot change 
them. It will certainly be a memorable occasion, and I send 
my most cordial good wishes. 

Very truly yours, 

John D. Long. 
Rev. D. M. Wilson, Quincy. 



124 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 

FROM THE REV. JOHN CORDNER, D.D. 

Boston, Sept. 18, 1889. 
Mr, Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — Many thanks to your committee for the courtesy 

of an invitation to your proposed commemoration September 29. 

The First Church, Quincy, has an honorable record, and has had 

in the past, as it has in the present, names eminent in public 

and private life. It would be to me a great pleasure to be with 

you on an occasion so interesting ; but I feel that I must deny 

myself. The state of my health just now compels me, much to 

my regret, to decline your very kind invitation. 

Truly yours, 

John Cordner. 



FROM THE REV. GEORGE S. BALL. 

Upton, Sept. 18, 1889. 

To the Committee on Invitations to attend the Services in Commemoration 
of the Completion of Two Hundred and Fifty Years of the First Church 
in Quincy. 

Gentlemen, — I thank you most heartily for your cordial invi- 
tation to be present at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
services of your church. It has a most marked history, and one 
well worthy commemoration. The ministers and laymen of it 
have been distinguished for scholarship and statesmanship, — 
for ability, piety, and public influence. 

During the ministry of that marked scholar and eloquent 
preacher, Rev. William P. Lunt, whose death was such a loss 
to your church and the community at large, I became somewhat 
interested in the society and acquainted with its history. Mr. 
Lunt quite frequently exchanged pulpits with me, to the great 
delight of my people at Plymouth. To me the opportunity to 
hear him preach was a very great pleasure, and in his most 
inspired moments he impressed me as among the great pulpit 



LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 125 

orators. Your invitation and anniversary recall these days 
before the war. 

I am also interested anew by dear friends who are now mem- 
bers of your parish, and deeply regret a combination of circum- 
stances which, I fear, will prevent me from being present as I 
desire to be. 

I know it must be a deeply interesting occasion. May it also 
be a profitable one, coming to you as an inspiration for fuller 
life as the years go by. 

In the bonds of fellowship, 

I am most truly yours, Geo. S. Ball. 



FROM THE REV. GEORGE A. THAYER. 

Cincinnati, Sept. 18, 1889. 
Lewis Bass, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I should be very glad if just at this time I 
could be a resident of some town nearer Quincy than is my Ohio 
home, that I might join in the celebration to which you kindly 
invite me, of your two hundred and fiftieth church anniversary. 
But a thousand miles is not easily traversed in a busy season, 
and I must be content to rejoice in the spirit with your people 
over what, to a dweller in one of the newer sections of a com- 
paratively youthful and recent republic, seems an exceeding ven- 
erable age, — an age which does not consist solely in number of 
years, but in honorable service to all the higher interests of the 
community in which the church has lived. To an institution as 
well as to an individual the words of the book of " Wisdom " 
apply : " Honorable age is not that which standeth in length 
of time, . . . but wisdom is the gray hair, and an unspotted life 
is old age." And such maturity certainly belongs to the career 
of excellent service for God and for man of which your people 
are about to take a retrospect. 

Very truly yours, George A. Thayer. 



126 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 

FROM THE REV. CHARLES NOYES. 

North Andover, Sept. 25, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — It would give me great pleasure to attend the 
services of the First Church, Quincy, in commemoration of its 
completion of two hundred and fifty years. My pulpit duties 
at North Andover on September 29 will not, however, allow 
me to be present. 

I regret this the more because I was once honored with an 
invitation to become pastor of the First Church, and have fol- 
lowed with special interest the record of its welfare and prosper- 
ity. May its future history tell of as faithful services to the 
cause of truth and righteousness as does that of the past two 

hundred and fifty years. 

Truly your friend, 

Charles Notes. 



FROM SAMUEL A. BATES. 

South Braintree, Sept. 20, 1889. 

Messrs. Adams, Bass, Dewson, and Faxon, Committee of First Church, 
Quincy, Mass. 
Many thanks for your kind invitation to the two hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of your church. If nothing prevents, I 
shall be present on that occasion to enjoy with you the re- 
hearsal of the noble deeds of our fathers who established on 
our soil the principles which have in the past governed the 
nation, and which I trust in the future will guide its destinies 
with success. May success attend your efforts in endeavoring 
to tlirow light upon the past history of your churcli, and of 
keeping the acts of those sires green in our memories ! Again 
thanking you for your kind invitation, 
I remain yours truly, 

Samuel A. Bates. 



LETTERS OF CONGEATULATION. 127 



FROM MRS. F. AUGUSTUS WHITNEY. 

Allston, Sept. 19, 1889. 
Mrs. F. Augustus Whitney, in acknowledging the cordial in- 
vitation of the committee to the commemorative services of the 
First Church in Quincy, feels great regret that illness will pre- 
vent her being present on an occasion in which she feels deep 
interest as being associated with the society so closely identified 
with the early interests of her late husband and of his family. 



FROM THE REV. A. B. MUZZEY. 

Cambridge, Sept. 20, 1889. 

The First Church, Quincy, the parent and home of great men, 
nationally, intellectually, and spiritually, and so honored in its 
long history, does wisely and justly in commemorating its two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary by special services. 

For these reasons, and drawn also toward your church as I 
am by personal relations and associations, I accept with pecu- 
liar pleasure their cordial invitation, and although eighty-seven 
years of age, trust nothing will prevent my attendance. 

Artemas B. Muzzey. 



FROM SELECTMEN OF TOWNS IN OLD BRAINTREE. 

IIoLBROOK, Mass., September, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation for the 29th is received, for 
which accept our thanks. We will endeavor to be present. 

Yours, 

Abram C. Holbrook, 

Chairman of Selectmen. 



128 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 

Randolph, Mass., Sept. 20, 1889. 
Lewis Bass, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation to selectmen to attend the ser- 
vices in commemoration of the completion of the two hundred 
and fifty years of the First Church, Quincy, has come to hand, 
and the selectmen have voted to accept the invitation and be 
present at the services. With many thanks for the invitation, 

I am yours respectfully, 

Michael J. Daly, 

Secretary of Selectmen. 



Braintree, Sept. 23, 1889. 
Mr. Bass. 

Your invitation to attend the two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary of the formation of the First Church is received, and 
thanking you for the same, will be pleased to attend. 

Nathaniel F. Hunt, 

For the Selectmen of the Town of Braintree, 



FROM THE REV. S. H. WINKLEY. 

Boston, Sept. 18, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — Permit me through you to thank the committee 
for its kind invitation to be present at the coming two hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the First Church in Quincy. I have 
two services for that afternoon, which will prevent my accept- 
ing the same. What a grand history that church has ! And 
what names inscribed upon its roll ! May its future be even 
more successful than its past ! 

Regretfully, 

S. H. WiNKLEY. 



LETTEES OF CONGRATULATION. 129 



FROM THE REV. EDWARD H. HALL. 

Cambridge, Sept. 20, 1889. 
My dear Mr. Wilson, — I have just received your note and 
the official invitation to your anniversary, and feel of course the 
greatest interest in the celebration. It seems like a continua- 
tion of our own three years ago, and I should be extremely 
sorry not to have our church represented. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, it will be quite impossible for me to get over in time for 
the entire exercises, even if I can get to you at all. I have a 
meeting immediately after the morning service which will pre- 
vent my reaching the 1.30 train ; and if I understand the time- 
table aright, there is no other train till 5, — which will be too 
late, I suppose, for any of the ceremonies. If it were possible, 
I would come in for what little I could get at the close. I need 
not say how much I regret this, as otherwise I should enjoy 
coming very much, and should do my best to say a few words 
of greeting. Hoping that the occasion will be an altogether 
successful one, 

I am sincerely yours, 

Edward H. Hall. 



FROM THE REV. CRAWFORD NIGHTINGALE. 

AsHMONT, Dorchester, Sept. 17, 1889. 

Dear Sir, — The card of invitation to the commemorative 

services at Quincy on the 29tli instant was received with much 

pleasure. The occasion will have a special interest for me, as 

my ancestors for several generations were residents of " that 

part of Braintree now called Quincy." Among them was 

Joseph Nightingale, who married Hannah Bass, and who 

named as executors of his will " Samuel Sewell and Samuel 

Bass, his trusty friends and kinsmen, and John Adams." 

Yours truly, 

Crawford Nightingale. 

9 



130 LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 

FROM THE OLD HINGHAM CHURCH. 

HiNGHAM, Sept. 23, 1889. 
The First Parish in Hingham accepts with pleasure the in- 
vitation of the First Church, Quincy, to send representatives 
to its commemorative services, September 29, and has ap- 
pointed four delegates for that purpose. 

Cordially and respectfully yours, 

Ebed L. Ripley, 

Chairman of the Committee of the First Parish in Hingham. 



FROM HARRISON J. DAWES. 

Newton Centre, Sept. 20, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — I am very sorry to be obliged to decline the in- 
vitation to be present at the two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary of the founding of our church. My health does not 
permit of my going out. In behalf of the Committee on Invi- 
tation please accept my regrets, and also my heartfelt good 
wishes for the continued prosperity of the society. 

Respectfully, 

Harrison J. Dawes. 



FROM THE REV. EDWIN DAVIS. 

Orange, Mass., Sept. 27, 1889. 
Mr. Bass. 

Dear Sir, — I wish gratefully to acknowledge the receipt of 
a very kind invitation from the committee who have the matter 
in charge to attend the celebration of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the First Congrega- 
tional Parish in Quincy. I regret exceedingly that circum- 
stances beyond my control compel me to be absent from town 
on the 29th instant, which were they otherwise would permit me 



LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION. 131 

to enjoy the pleasure of being present with you at that time. 
Be assured of my interest in the event, and accept the assurance 
that " though absent in body, I am present in spirit." Thanking 
the Committee for their kind invitation, 

I am, fraternally yours, 

Edwin Davis. 



FROM THE REV. F. FROTHINGHAM. 

Old Orchard, Me., Sept. 26, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass, Quincy, Mass. 

My dear Sir, — I beg you to accept my thanks for your kind 
invitation on behalf of the First Church of Quincy to the cele- 
bration of its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. How gladly 
would I be present to share in the memories and associations of 
an occasion so rich in both ! But I am away from home, and 
must deny myself the privilege. But I cordially express the hope 
that the celebration of your anniversary may be not only full 
of good inspiration from the long past, but abound in good 
promise and augury for the longer and may it be the ever- 
improving and greatening future. With all good wishes, 
I remain, dear sir, your and its friend and servant, 

Fredk. Frothingham. 



FROM GEORGE GREENLEAF DAWES. 

Boston, Sept. 23, 1889. 
Mr. Lewis Bass. 

Dear Sir, — I received an invitation from the First Church 
of Quincy to be present at their two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary. It will be impossible for me to be present ; but I feel a 
great interest in the welfare of the church wherein I was reared, 
and where my ancestors for many generations have worshipped. 
Thanking you for remembering me, 

I am very truly yours, 

George Greenleaf Dawes. 



PRELIMINAEY PROCEEDINGS. 



AT the annual parish meeting, the 11th of March, 1889, the fol- 
lowing named persons were appointed to make all arrangements 
for the proper celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of the gathering of First Church : — 

Eev. D. M. Wilson, Charles Francis Adams, 

Edward H. Dewson, Lewis Bass, 

William Lyman Faxon, Mrs. William B. Rice, 

Mrs. Wilson Tisdale, Mrs. J. Franklin Faxon, 

Mrs. John Q. A. Field, Mrs. Thomas A. Whicher. 

A meeting of this committee was held soon afterward. The pas- 
tor acted as chairman, and Mr. Lewis Bass was chosen secretary. 
It was decided to have the commemorative services on the afternoon 
of Sunday, the 29th of September, 1889, and to invite several gen- 
tlemen to deliver addresses. The pastor announced that he would 
preach two introductory sermons, — one on the morning of September 
22, and the other on the morning of September 29. The following 
sub-committees were then appointed to carry out the arrangements 
in detail : — 

Committee on lEn&ttations. 

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Mr. Edward H. Dewson, 
Mr. Lewis Bass, Mr. William Lyman Faxon. 

©n Programme. 

Rev. D. MuNRo Wilson, Mr. L H. H. Johnson, 

Mr. Harry L. Rice. 



134 



PRELIMINAEY PROCEEDINGS. 



Mr. Edward H. Dewson, 
Mr. George L. Gill, 
Mr. Joseph L. Whiton, 
Mr. J. Henry Emery, 
Mr, Joseph C. Morse, 



Mr. Charles A. Rowland, 
Mr. John Q. A. Field, 
Mr. Frank B. Foster, 
Mrs. J. Franklin Faxon, 
Mrs. Lewis Bass, 



Mrs. John 0. Holden. 



©n ©cccirations. 



Mr. Fred B. Rice, 
Mr. Edward Whicher, 
Mr. William I. Dewson, 
Mrs. William B. Eice, 



Mrs. George B. Wendell, 
Mrs. Eben C. Stanwood, 
Mrs. George L. Keye8, 
Miss Minnie J. Pratt. 



Mr. William B. Rice, 
Mr. George H. Field, 
Mr. Henry M. Faxon, 



©n Pusic, 



Mr, John Shaw, Jr., 
Mrs. Wilson Tisdale, 
Mrs. Horace F. Spear, 



Miss Abby C. Chamberlin. 



©n 2^£{rc0!)«^ent0. 



Mrs. Thomas A. Whicher, 
Mrs. John Q. A. Field, 
Mrs. James H. Stetson, 
Mrs. M. A. Perkins, 
IVIrs. James H. Slade, 



Mrs. RuFus Foster, 
Mrs. Ibrahim Morrison, 
Mrs George W. Morton, 
Mrs. Samuel Crane, 
Mrs. Eugene N. Hultman. 



Mr. Henry H. Faxon, 
Mr, Edwin B. Pratt, 
Mr. James Edwards, 



©n jFinance. 



Mr. Charles H. Porter, 
Mr. J. Franklin Faxon, 
Mr. Luther S. Anderson. 



PEELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 135 



OUR QUARTO-MILLENNIAL CHOIR. 



William B. Rice, Leader. Abby C. Chamberlin, Organist. 

Sopranos. 
Mrs. Horace F. Spear, Miss May McPhail, 

Miss MixNiE W. Litchfield, Miss S. Elizabeth Aceebman, 
Mrs. Cyrus T. Sherman, Miss Grace Isaacs, 

Miss Laura Hayward. 

Tenors. 

James F. Harlow, Walter M. Packard, 

George Harvey Field. 

Altos. 
Mrs. George Harvey Field, [Miss Mary Gardner, 
Mrs. Walter M. Packard, Mrs. William Austin Winslow, 

IVIiss LiLLiE Taber, Miss Lillie Scammell. 

Basses. 
Peter B. Gomez, George Arthur Sherman, 

Charles H. Porter, Jr., J. Franklin Burrell, 

Cyrus T. Sherman. 



APPENDIX. 



THE COVENANT. 

'T^HE following is the original Covenant which was pre- 
i. sented when the Church was gathered, and then signed 
by the two ministers and six others. The Rev. John Hancock 
printed it with his sermons preached at the close of the first 
century of our Church's existence : — 

"We poor unworthy creatures, who have sometime lived without 
Christ and without God in the world, and so have deserved rather 
fellowship with the devil and his angels than with God and his 
saints, being called of God out of this world to the fellowship of 
Christ by the Ministry of the Gospel, and our hearts made willing 
to join together in Church Fellowship, so by the help aud strength 
of Christ, renounce the devil, the wicked world, a sinful flesh, with 
all the remnants of Anti-Christian pollution wherein some'times 
we have walked, and all our former evil ways, and do give up our- 
selves, first to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and offer up 
our proffered subjection to our Lord Jesus Christ as the only Priest, 
Prophet and King of his Church, beseeching him in his rich grace and 
free mercy to accept us for his people in the blood of his Covenant; 
and we give up ourselves also one to another by the will of God, 
promising in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
worketh in us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure, 
to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth, and to walk in brotherly 
love and the duties thereof according to the will of the Gospel, to 
the edification of the body and of each member therein, and to be 
guided in all things according to God's revealed will, seeking to 
advance the Glory of Jesus Christ, our head, both in Church and 
Brotherly Communion, thro' the assistance of his Holy Spirit which 
he hath promised to his Church ; and we do manifest our joint con- 



138 



APPENDIX. 



sent herein this day in presence of this assembly, by this our present 
public profession, and by giving to one another the right hand of 
fellowship. 

" Wm. Tompson, Pastor. John Dassett. 

Henry Flynt, Teacher. William Potter. 

George Rose, Martin Saunders. 

Stephen Kinsley, Elder Gregory Belcher." 

THE DEACONS. 



Samuel Bass, 
Alexander Winchester, 
Richard Brackett, 
Francis Eliot, 
William Alice, 
Robert Parmenter, 
Samuel Tompson, 
Thomas Bass. 
Joseph Penniman. 
Nathaniel Wales. 
Benjamin Savil. 
Moses Paine. 
Gregory Belcher. 
Peter Adams, 
Samuel Savil, 
Jonathan Webb, 
John Adams, 
Joseph Palmer, 
Moses Belcher, 
Joseph Neal, Jr., 
Daniel Arnold, 
Benjamin Bass, 
Ebenezer Adams, 
Jonathan Webb. 
Elijah Veazie. 
Jonathan Bass. 
JosiAH Adams. 
Daniel Spear, 
Samuel Savil," 
William Spear, 
James Newcomb, 
Elijah Baxter, 
George Baxter, 
Thomas G. Fenno, 



July 5, 1640, 

" 12, " 
" 21, 1642, 

Oct. 12, 1653. 

(( (( a 

Nov. 2, 1679. 



Received to Communion. 
Dismissed from Boston Church. 



Aug. 21, 1727. 

li (( (( 

May 11, 1747. 

(( a a 

" 29, 1752. 



Nov, 



3, 1769. 
1, 1771. 
3, 1773. 



Jan. 27, 


1811. 






Oct. 24, 


1817. 






Nov. 22, 


1835. 






li a 


(( 






April 4, 


1844. 


Died Feb. 2, 


1868. 


July 21, 


" 


" Dec. 14, 


1870. 


Jan. 20, 


1861. 


" Jan, 11, 


1865. 



APPENDIX. 139 



MEETING-HOUSES. 

It was the making repairs much needed in the old stone meet- 
ing-house which opened the way for the introduction of the pew 
system, as the following vote indicates : — 

" October 22, 1697. 

" Voted at the same time that upon the drawing up or uniting the 
men's seats with the women's in the present alley, any Roome being 
left after alterations in the meeting-house, any person with consent of 
the Committee Selectmen may at their own proper charges mak pews 
for themselves and familys." (Braintree Records, p. 3G.) 

Then it was that the aspiring person spoken of in the second 
discourse asked permission to build the pew over the pulpit. 
Seats at this time must have been very scarce in the meeting- 
house, every available place occupied, to lead the respectable 
Mr. Rawson to make this cherubic exhibition of himself and the 
members of his household. One would give much to see them 
soberly seated up there above the dignified deacons, and right 
over the didactic minister Fiske. Here is the vote : — 

"October 22, 1697. 
" Voted also at the same time that M"". William Rawson should 
have priviledge of making a seate for his familie, between or upon 
the two beams over the pulpit, not darkening the pulpit." (Braintree 
Records, p. 36.) 

For ten years or so Mr. Rawson and his family looked down 
upon his fellow-worshippers and his minister ; then, in 1709, it 
was voted " that M'' William Rawson sen' shall have the Liberty 
of a Pew on the back side of the meeting-house for himself and 
all his Family at the left hand of M' Wilson's Pew, M-" Wilson's 
and M"" Quinsey's Pews being removed back to y® wall.". But it 
was a standing difficulty to dispose of Mr. Rawson. Two votes 
more, one in 1710 and the other in 1711, were taken before he 
was finally seated in " a second Pew home to the wall, at the 
west end of the meetin2;-house." 



140 APPENDIX. 

These pews, by the way, were granted with the most liberal 
conditions. Captain Wilson, who was the first to obtain permis- 
sion to build one, was allowed to put it in whatever convenient 
place he should elect, and Joseph Crosby, to secure room enough 
for his, was granted leave to move the east door about four feet 
to the northward. To do this, he stoned up the old door, and 
then tore down the wall to make the new door. Although those 
of the " south end " had withdrawn, the floor was soon covered 
with seats and pews, and then David Bass thought he discovered 
a vacant spot by the east window where a pew might be squeezed 
in, and applied for the space. But this was too much crowding 
even for the men of those days, and accordingly the vote passed 
in the negative. The passion for exclusiveness also got posses- 
sion of John Sanders and Samuel Savel, and it was voted they 
" should have the Two hindermost short seats in the gallery, in 
the southwest side of the meeting-house extending to the Beams, 
for a Pew for their wives and children." Aristocracy and exclu- 
siveness might have dominion on the ground floor ; but in the 
gallery, — no ! the boys were there, the tireless baiters of tithing- 
men. When Sanders and Company came one Sunday to occupy 
their new pew, they found it a wreck. Some five months after 
they had obtained the coveted privilege, " it was put by the 
Moderator whether they would Relinquish their Right to their 
Pew, which was broken, to the Precinct. They then did both 
thereupon Resign their Right to y® Precinct." No second at- 
tempt, I believe, was made to build a pew in the galleries. 

I have tried to make a plan of this old church after the pews 
were all arranged in it, and think I have been fairly successful. 
The building was so nearly square that the same wall was some- 
times called a side and sometimes an end. So I have assumed 
it was thirty-five feet square. The pews can be placed with tol- 
erable accuracy ; they could be placed with entire accuracy if 
one could be sure where the stairs to the women's gallery were 
situated. I have drawn them in the northwest corner ; they 
may have been in the southwest corner. But after all it is only 



APPENDIX. 



141 



a matter of the order of the pews against the west wall, — they 
being described as first from the women's stairs, second from 
the women's stairs, etc. It is to be taken into consideration, 
however, that seats and pews were placed with no such regularity 



SOUTHEAST. 



Minister's. 

No. 2. 1701. 



Deacons' Seats. 



Benj. -Webb. 
No. 10. 1714. 



To Men's 
Gallery. 



Men's Seats. 


Women's Seats. 































































Maj. John Quincy. 
No. 8. 1712. 



Capt. John Wilson. 
No. I. 1700. 



Col. Ed. Quincy. 
No. 3. 1709. 



Capt. Mills. 
Lieut. Cleverly. 
Ensign Adams. 
Ensign Baxter. 

No. 7. 1712. 



No. 6. X711. 



No. 4. 1711 



Sam. Spear. 



No. 5. 1711. 



To Women'; 
Gallery. 



NORTHWEST. 



and symmetry as would appear by the plan. The figures indicate 
the order and the year in which the pews were built. An open- 
ing is left for a west door, but I am not sure that there was one. 
The old stone meeting-house, unused and dismantled of belfry 
and windows, was permitted to stand in the little town common 
till 1747, when it was sold at auction to Serg. Moses Belcher 



142 APPENDIX. 

and Mr. Joseph Nightingale for XlOO, old tenor. At one time it 
was proposed to convert it into a poor-house, but upon consider- 
ation it was found not to be easily adapted to that use. 

Hancock's meeting-house was sixty feet in length by forty 
feet in width (inside measurement). The committee chosen to 
build it " were Col. Edmund Quincey, Major John Quincey, Lieut. 
Joseph Neall, Mr. Benjamin Beall, Deacon Peter Adams, Ensign 
Samuel Baxter, and Mr. Joseph Crosbey." " Then the question 
was asked whether the said house should be accomidated with 
Pews as conveniently as may be, it passed in the affirmative." 
Pews were still such an innovation that it was not to be taken 
for granted they would be built in the new meeting-house ; and 
the vote to have them is not to be taken as implying that the 
entire floor and the galleries were to be occupied by them, as in 
modern churches. The half-way system in vogue in the later 
years of the old stone edifice was carried over into the new 
building. The floor, for the most part, was still to be covered 
with the two rows of the " men's seats " and the " women's 
seats," and the front of the galleries was reserved, the south one 
for the women, the north one for the men. Thus the pews were 
mainly set against the walls. They were of the little-square- 
room description, and were disposed of in five lots, as follows : 
"eight pews at ,£25, twelve at .£15, eight at £12, six at .£10, 
and six at £7, and in the galleries twenty pews, viz., eight in 
the front against the wall at £10 ; and (if it be thought conve- 
nient) six on each side (against the wall) at £8." John Adams, 
afterwards deacon, was the clerk at this time, and he records an 
" account of the persons who drew pews in the new meeting- 
house, and of the situation of the said pews as the same were 
drawn persuant to a rule agreed upon for that end the fourteenth 
day of August, 1732." It is from that account and other min- 
utes that the diagram under the picture of the church on a pre- 
ceding page is made. Pews in the galleries at about the same 
time were also disposed of to the following persons : Lieut. 
Thomas Crosby, Deacon Samuel Savel, Samuel Adams, Nathan- 



APPENDIX. 143 

iel Gilbird, Joseph Crosby, Jr., Aaron Hayward, Thomas Clev- 
erly, William Hayden, Jr., Ezekiel Crane. On a higher level still 
Capt. Samuel Baxter built him a pew above the women's stairs 
in the gallery, and Lieut. Joseph Crosbey was granted the sim- 
ilar place above the men's stairs. In time, more pews were built 
on the ground floor, usurping the place of the benches, and the 
remaining benches were joined together in some places across 
the aisle, and short seats put up where any room was to be had, 
so that at last only those expert at it could thread the devious 
path among them. From the memoirs of the wife of President 
Quincy (she came here in 1798) the following view of the in- 
terior of the church at a later time is obtained : — 

" The pews in the centre . . . having been made out of long open 
seats, by successive votes of the town, were of different sizes, and 
had no regularity of arrangement, and several were entered by nar- 
row passages, winding between those in their neighborhood. The 
seats being provided with hinges were raised when the congregation 
stood during the prayer, and at its conclusion thrown down with a 
momentum which on her first attendance alarmed Mrs. Quincy, who 
feared the church was falling. The deacons were ranged under the 
pulpit, and beside its door the sexton was seated, while from an 
aparture aloft in the wall the bell-ringer looked in from the tower 
to mark the arrival of the clergyman. The voices of the choir 
in the front gallery were assisted by a discordant assemblage of 
stringed and wind instruments." 

Not altogether by the " poorer sort " were the " seats " occu- 
pied. Very many of the most respectable people in the parish 
filled them. Here is a record in illustration : " Whare as Mrs. 
Mary Norton hath of late given to Braintree North Precinct a 
Velvet Cushen of Considerable Value. Voted, that thanks be 
Returned to the said Madm. Norton for the Gift aforesaid, and 
that she be invited to tak the upper end of the fore sect for her 
sect in the new Meeting-House." It was on these " fore sects " 
that John Adams as a boy saw from his father's pew near the 



144 APPENDIX. 

pulpit those rows of " venerable heads," a sight which affected 
him deeply. The invasions began to be made upon the seats, 
when on April 4th, 1757, it was voted, " That the Ground upon 
wch the two hindermost seats on each side the Midle Alley Stand 
Be Disposed of in order that Pues may Be rested their on by ye 
Purchcrs, provided four appear for that porpus." The expected 
" Purchers " were of those who sat on the seats ; the discomfort 
suggested in the word " Purchers " is not intentional, but, sitting 
in our luxurious modern pews, we may regard it as a " palpa- 
ble hit." 

The choir came into existence in March, 1764. The following 
is a vote recorded at that time : " That the two seats in the front 
Gallery Be Divided By an Alle in the Midle of Sd seats To acomi- 
date those persons that have Ben att Pains and expense to Gain 
Instruction in the Use of Psalmody, and that the Division next 
the Wemans Sects Be their Part." In 1772 they were invited to 
" acomidate " themselves below, where the " men's hind seats " 
and the " women's hind seats " are " now standing," and in 1794 
they were coaxed back into the gallery again. 

In 1805 the church was enlarged "by sawing the building 
lengthwise with the ridge pole, from north to South, moving the 
front, or west portion of the same, fifteen feet forward, and fram- 
ing in the intermediate space." A little before this the stairs 
to the galleries in both the west corners were removed, and 
entrances to the galleries effected by the tower on the north 
side, and by a tall porch on the south side. The ground floor 
of the church as thus altered, and as it appeared when the build- 
ing was taken down, in 1828, was represented in the Rev. George 
Whitney's History of Quincy. This we print, not only because 
it shows us the plan of the pews, but also because it shows us 
who were the members of the parish at this time, and how they 
disposed themselves (see page 145). 

To make the list of pew-owners complete, we add those who 
held pews in the galleries : Bryant Ncwcomb, Capt. Benjamin 
Page, Alpheus and Lemuel Spear one pew between them, George 



APPENDIX. 



145 



Spear, Ebenezer Bent, Thomas Adams, Solomon and Josiah 
Nightingale one, Ezra Glover, Daniel Spear. " The first four 
pews," says Mr. Whitney, " were in the east end of the south 






Night- 
ingale. 



EAST. 6i feet. 



84 I 85 



•3 « 3 



fiilpit. 



Deacons* Seat. 



8e 
S-3 



■»** Taylor. 


Ministry. 24 


47 Glover. 


Baxter. 23 


46 Fenn^. 


Mayo. 22 


45 Glover. 


Jenkins. 21 


44 Hall. 


Thaytr U „ 
Brigkm. ™ 


43 Souther. 


Capt. Bass. 19 


42 Savil. 


Judge 5, 
Greenleaf '"^ 


41 Pope. 


S. Spear. 17 


40 Green. 


Beale. 16 


39 Apthorp. 
38 Appleton. 


E. Spear. 15 


WillettSc „ 
French. '"♦ 


37 Billings. 


Brackett & 
Newcomb 3 



I Presidents. 


Baxter. 25 


2 Greenleaf. 


Dea. Spear , 
& N. Bent. ^* 


3 Nightingale 


Baxter. 27 


4 Tufts. 


Newcomb. 28 


S Riddle. 


Curtis. 29 


6 Baxter. 


Curtis. 30 


Jud-e 
7 Adams. 


Deacon ,, 
Savil. 3' 


8 Briesler. 


Crane & 
Nightingale3- 


9 Miller. 


B.ixter 

U Wild. 33 


10 Quincy. 


Quincy. 34 


Shaw & 
" Chubhuck. 


Hardwick, 35 


,0 '*• * J- 
'- Faxon 


Bass. 36 



' Phipps. 






S99^ 



5" Pray. 



Parch. WEST. 
GROUND FLOOR AFTER THE ALTERATIONS OF THE BUILDING IN 1805. 



gallery, and were occupied by the owners. The others were on 
the back of the west gallery, most of the owners occupying their 
pews below." 

It is instructive to know how this same congregation seated it- 
self in the Stone Temple when it was ready for worship, in 1828, 
and we append a diagram made at that time (see page 146). 

It would be a complete presentation of pew-owners if to the 
above plan could be added a plan of the galleries. No such 
plan, however, is to be found. I wrote to a lady, familiar all her 
days with the church and its people, with regard to the occupants 
of the galleries, and received this for answer: "I can only 



146 



APPENDIX. 



PEWS IN THE NEW STONE MEETINa-HOUSE, QUINCY. 
134 ON THE Floor, 22 in the Galleries. 



K 




•V 






TJ 


C-i 


a 


IsS 


1 


hdco 


CO 


1 

ST. CO 


s* 

1— '■» h- 
CO r' CO 






















•a 








B 




'5 






O 


g 

^ 

















PULPIT. 



li:5 
Tho. Adams 





119 
D. French. 



118 
P. Turner. 



117 
Mrs. Fenno 



116 

Capt. 

B. Page. 



115 
Josiah SaTil. 



114 
L. Baxter. 



113 
Tho. Taylor. 



112 
Jon. Marsh. 




108 



107 



106 



87 
J. White- 
more. 


86 
Parish. 


88 
Isaac Bass. 


85 
Sam. Cop- 
land. 


89 
E. W. Samp- 
son. 


84 
Gen. T. 
Taylor. 


90 
Isaac Riddle. 


83 
Harvey 
Field. 


91 
Dea. S. Savil. 


82 
J. Williams. 


92 
Ezra Glover 


81 
Nath. White. 


93 
Lem. Pope. 


80 
Adam 
Curtis. 


94 
J. Bass, Jr. 


79 
Henry 
Wood. 


95 
Hor. Glover. 


78 

Capt. 

J. Bass. 


96 
John Savil. 


77 
N. Josselyn. 


97 
John L. 
Souther. 


76 
Elihu 
Arnold. 


98 
A. Hard- 
wick. 


75 


99 
Jos. Burrell. 


74 


100 
S. Spear & 
G. Baxter. 


73 


101 


72 


102 
H.Hardwick. 


71 


103 


70 


104 
Tho. Taylor. 


69 


105 


68 
C. &L. 
Faxon. 

















w 




H 


s 


^ 


m 






a 


2 


^ 


■a 


a. 


n 








^ 


r-(<. 


05 <! 


cooj 




lO 


CO 


00 . 


d 


& 


CI 






>-> 


a 
.a 


f-5 


<-> 


1-5 


1-5 






03 


^ 











49 
Capt. J. 
Whitney. 


4S 
Wm. Baxter. 


50 
D. Greenleaf 


47 

Dea. 

D. Spear. 


51 

Hon. 

T. Greenleaf 


46 
N. Curtis. 


52 
E. Miller. 


45 
Cotton 

Tufts. 


53 

Geo. W. 

Beale. 


44 
Josiah 

Nightingale. 


54 

Hon. 

J. Q. Adams. 


43 

James 

Newcomb. 


55 

Hon. 

J. Quincy. 


42 
Mrs. Baxter. 


66 

Hon. 

J. Quincy. 


41 
Tho. B. 
Adams. 


57 

John 

Souther. 


40 
F. Hardwick. 


68 
J. Brigham. 


39 
Elijah Spear. 


59 
Capt. 0. 
Jenkins. 


38 
Elisha 
Marsh. 


60 
Eben. Shaw. 


37 
Josiah 
Hayden. 


61 


36 
Geo. 

Nightingale. 


62 


35 
D. Hobart. 


63 
John Shaw. 


34 
Jon. Spear. 


64 


33 
Alph. Spear. 


65 


32 

Geo. W. 

Beale. 


66 


31 


67 
J. Whitney. 


30 





10 

Wm. 

Baxter, Jr. 

il 

James 

Baxter. 

12 

A. WiUett. 



13 

S. Nightin- 
gale. 



14 
Paul Wilde. 



15 
J. Briesler, 

Jr^ 

16 
Wm. Wood. 



17 
Doct. T. 
Phipps. 

18 

James 

Edwards. 



19 
John 
Glover, Jr. 
'""20 
T. J. Night- 
ingale. 
21 

Tho. 

Nottage. 

22 

John 

DwoUe. 

"23 
J. H. Bass. 



24 

Jesse 
Newcomb. 



25 
Wm. Spear. 



26 
Capt. J. Bass. 



27 
Eben. 
Adams. 

28 



29 



APPENDIX. 147 

remember Mr. Bryant Newcomb, from the Neck, Miss Mary Jane 
Turner's grandfather, and Ned Seaver, who sat in the gallery 
opposite Temple Street. ... I saw Mrs. Jerusha Hardwick last 
evening, and she thought there were not many in the galleries 
in those days." I am inclined to think this latter conclusion 
is to be accepted. It was then considered the proper thing to 
sit downstairs, and not many gallery-pews would be purchased 
while pews were to be obtained within the fashionable area. 
As will be seen by the plan, a great many pews remained un- 
sold on the floor. President J. Q. Adams bought thirty of 
them for three thousand dollars. 

The building committee of the Stone Temple was composed of 
the following gentlemen : Thomas Greenleaf (chairman), Noah 
Curtis, John Souther, Lemuel Brackett, and Daniel Spear. 

GIFTS OF COMMUNION VESSELS. 

The following is a list of the sacred vessels belonging to First 
Church, with the inscriptions they bear, and some facts about those 
who gave them : — 

A small cup, having two handles, and 
marked on the bottom, — 

JOANNAH YORKE. 
1685 
BC 

James Yorke and Johanna his wife 
were among the earliest members of our 
church. According to the Braintree records, a son was born to them 
June 14, 1648. Afterward the^' removed to Stonington, Conn., where 
in 1666 James was made freeman. 

In the letter-book of Samuel Sewall, Vol. I. p. 28, is the following 
entr}' : — 

February the 20th, 168f. I Samuel Tomson, Deacon of the Church of 
Christ at Braintrey, have received of Sam. Sewall one silver Goblet to the 
value of fourty shillings in money; which is in full of a Legacy of fourty shil- 
Ungs bequeathed said church by Mrs. Joanna Yorke of Stonington, lately 




148 APPENDIX. 

deceased. In witness wliereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the day 

and year first above writt-en. 

Samel Tompson [Sig.]. 
Elizabeth Lane. 
Mart Kay. 

A small cup of the same form as the preceding, bearing a coat-of- 
arms on the surface and marked on the bottom, — 

B C 

1699 

The side opposite the coat-of arms is marked, " Gift of Edmund 
Quincy, Esq., to the First Church of Braintree, now Quincy, by will 
dated December 11th, 1697." 

A small cup of the same form as the preceding, plain on the sur- 
face, with the following inscription: "Ye gift of Decou Samll bas, 
W" Veasey, Jno. Ruggle, David Walesby, 1694." 

A high cup marked below the rim, " The gift of William Needham 
to Brantry Church, 1688." WiUiam Needham was granted in 1639 a 
house-plot out of the little island beyond Coddingtou's brook. 

A high cup marked, — 




The B is for Brackett, and the R stands for Richard, and the A for 
Alice his wife. Richard Brackett was in Boston in 1632, and with 
his wife Alice was dismissed from Boston church to Braintree church, 
Dec. 5, 1641. He probably came here earlier, as in June, 1638, he 
was granted leave to sell house and garden in Boston. Richard died 
the 3d of March, 1690, aged eighty ; Alice died the 3d of November, 
1690, aged seventy-six. The cup was probably given as a memorial 
of both after their death. 

A high cup marked, "The gift of Mrs. Mehetable Fisher to the 
First Church of Christ in Braintree, 1741." In the old cemetery in 



APPENDIX. 149 

Quincj is a gravestone with this inscription : " Here lies Buried y* Body 
of Mrs. Meiiitable Fisher, wife of Mr. Josiah Fisher. She died May 
18th, 1741, in the 78 year of her age." 

A cup marked, "The gift of y* Hon'ble Edmund Quincy, Esq., to 
ye First Church in Braintree, Feb'y 23d, 1737-38." 

A tankard marked, " The gift of tlie Hon'ble John Quinc}', Esq., to 
the First Church of Christ in Braintree, 1767." 

A tankard marked, " The gift of Mrs. Sarah Adams (Relict of Mr. 
Edward Adams, late of Milton) to the First Church in Braintree." 
There is no date added, but the church records fix the time Nov. 4, 
1770. 

Four large-sized flagons, marked as follows : " Presented by Daniel 
Greenleaf to the Congregational Church in Quincy, 1828." 

Three plates, marked thus : " Presented to the First Congregational 
Church in Quincy, b}^ Deacon Josiah Adams, Deacon Daniel Spear, 
and Deacon Samuel Savil, 1828." 

A baptismal vase having this inscription : ' ' Presented to the Con- 
gregational Church in the town of Quincy, by Mrs. Eliza Susan 
Quincy, 1828." 

A small cup having two handles, and marked on one side, — 

with the following inscription below it: "To the First Unitarian 
Church of Quincy, from Quincy Tufts, Weymouth, July 4, 1872 ; " on 
opposite side, C T to Q T ; and on bottom, — 

T 
P * M 

A tankard bearing a coat of arms, and on the bottom, — 

marked, " To the First Unitarian Church in Quincy, from Quincy 
Tufts, Weymouth, July 4, 1872." 



150 APPENDIX. 



OTHER GIFTS TO THE CHURCH. 

The clock on the front of the singers' gallery was presented, it is 
said, by Madam Abigail Adams, wife of President Adams, Sr., and 
Madam Esther Black, widow of the late Moses Black, Esq. The 
Rev. Frederick A. Whitney, however, says nothing of this, and quotes 
the following from a book we have not been able to find : " Sept. 30, 
1799. Voted, that the thanks of the town be returned to President 
Adams and Mr. Moses Black for the present to the town of a clock 
in the meeting-house." When this clock was transferred to Stone 
Temple, it was " voted to put a new dial and glass to" it. 

The fine crimson curtain which adorns the wall back of the pulpit 
was given to the church by Miss Nancy Brackett. 

The two volumes of Scriptures, used in the pulpit, contain the fol- 
lowing : "To the Church and Congregational Society of the Town of ■ 
Quincy, this Bible, for the use of the Sacred Desk, is respectfully 
presented by Josiah Quincy. Boston, Oct., 1808." 

" New bound and divided into two volumes, Oct., 1828. Josiah 
Quincy." 

Mr. Thomas Adams, who died Jan. 2, 1869, bequeathed to the church 
the sum of ten thousand dollars for the support of public worship. 

After the death of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, it was seen by 
certain minutes he had written that he had it in mind to add ten thou- 
sand dollars to the amount given by Thomas Adams. No provision 
for this was made in his will ; but the family of Mr. Adams offered 
the society ten thousand dollars, provided the total sum of both gifts, 
twenty thousand dollars, should be safely preserved, and the income 
of it applied to the support of worship and the care of the church 
building and the grounds around it. The society accepted the gift 
with the provisions attached, and appointed Henry A. Johnson, 
Edward H. Dewson, and Charles II. Porter a board of trustees to 
receive and manage the fund. 

Miss Sarah Vinal, who died in Quincy, May 20, 1881, aged 85, be- 
queathed to the society one thousand dollars. The income of this 
sum is used to pay any expenses of the society. ■ 



APPENDIX. 151 



WHEELWRIGHT'S POETRAIT, AND OTHER PORTRAITS 
AND PICTURES, 

The original painting from which the portrait of John Wheelwright 
in this volume is taken, hangs in one of the rooms of the Secretary of 
State at the State House. M3' attention was called to it by Mr. Henry 
B. Wheelwright, a direct descendant of the first pastor of this church. 
I had it taken down, and together with Mr. A. C. Goodell, Jr., and 
Mr. David Pulsifer, thoroughly scrutinized it. There is no name any- 
where on or about the picture, no direct evidence that it is the portrait 
of the Rev. John Wheelwright ; but an inscription in dark letters, 
almost concealed in the dark paint of the background, indirectly points 
to Wheelwright as the subject of it. That inscription was partly cut 
off when at some time the canvas was reduced to fit a smaller frame. 
It is as follows : — 

"Aetat]is Suae 84 
Anno DJomini 1677." 

These dates correspond very closely with the age of Mr. Wheel- 
wright. He was born, says Mr. Bell, in the early part of 1593 ; add 
eighty-four years to that, and it carries us to the year 1677, the year of 
the portrait. So far as I can ascertain, there is only one other minis- 
ter, — the portrait is that of a minister, — to whose age these figures so 
nicely accord. Roger Conant was born in 1592-93, and died Nov. 19, 
1679, aged eighty- seven years. At one time the name of John Higgin- 
son got attached somehow to the portrait, but as that minister was born 
as late as 1616 the figures plainly have no application to him. Jeremy 
Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire, presented what appears to 
be a copy of this painting to the American Antiquarian Society of 
Worcester. John Higginson's name was then upon it, and it is from 
this fact, I am given to understand, that the portrait came to be called 
that of John Higginson. Those like Mr. Goodell, Jr., and Dr. Edward 
Strong, who have given some attention to the matter, are inclined to 
think it a veritable portrait of Wheelwright. It used to hang in the 
Senate Chamber. Wheelwright in his later years was still a marked 
man, not onlj' as having been "like Roger Williams or worse," but 
also as having been the honored guest of his friends the great Crom- 



152 APPENDIX. 

well and " Hany " Vane when in 1657 he visited England, and in this 
relation being of some considerable service to the colony. Besides 
this, ' ' his children and grandchildren had married very conspicuously 
in societ}', and there might have been a strong feeling to do the old 
man justice in his falling age," and pay him such little attention as 
having his portrait painted. From lettei-s written me by Mr. Henry 
B. Wheelwright, I venture to abstract the following : — 

" John Wheelwright was the only clergyman in the colony of the age named 
in the inscription at the date given as that of the painting of the portrait. 
That 's all any one can say about it, as far as known outside of the family ; but 
I am convinced from the anatomy of the face, old and withered as it is, and its 
strong resemblance about the mouth and cheeks to some of my kindred, that it 
is old ' Boanerges ' himself. ... I have learned the value of little things as 
clews ; they have led me, Theseus-like, out of many a mystery. As far back 
as I can remember in my family, there has been a ' trick * in each generation of 
carrying the thumb. My grandfather lived to ninety-one, and always sat in his 
armchair with hands slightly clasped, and hotli thumbs turned upward rigidhj, 
in extenso. So with others of us who turn up one thumb. It is entirely invol- 
untary with us all ; / am liable to it if I go to thinking intently. Now, in this 
picture there 's the old parson, with his hand on his Bible and thumb rigidly 
turned up in the air, like three generations of us that I know of. This seems 
laughable, to be sure, but identity is often detected by slighter ' clews.' 

" Mr. John Wheelwright entered Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, April 
28, IGll, pensioner, — which means that he was a person of property sufficient 
to maintain him in good style. I took this myself from the original books 
of Sidney-Sussex last spring." 

Wheelwright died at Salisbury, Mass., Nov. 15, 1679. The family 
device on the tomb in King's Chapel yard is " Spectemur agendo;" 
and this, his descendant my correspondent thinks, is an entirely 
appropriate and accurately descriptive motto. 

To Mr. Harrison J. Dawes, a descendant of Richard Cranch and 
closel}' resembling him in his features, I am indebted for the portrait 
of that vigorous scholar and eminent citizen. The picture has enough 
individuality about it to warrant it a good likeness. Another descend- 
ant was the late Mr. Richard Greenleaf. He had the original from 
which the photograph was taken that was lent to me by Mr. Dawes. 

The portraits of members of the Adams family are, with the excep- 
tion of that of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, from original paint- 



APPENDIX. 153 

ings. In his "Figures of the Past" Josiah Quincy has a pleasant 
description of John Adams sitting to Gilbert Stuart for the portrait 
copied for this book. From the brush of that celebrated painter came 
also the likeness of Abigail Adams. The portrait of John Quincy 
Adams was painted by Copley, and that of Mrs. J. Q. Adams by an 
unknown artist. Some of the best work of W. M. Hunt is exhibited 
in the portrait of Mrs. Charles F. Adams. The heliotype of the Hon. 
Charles F. Adams is from a verj- accurate photograph. 

It was an antiquarian motive which induced me to publish 
pictures of houses representative of old Braintree. Already we 
regret the loss of houses which, locally, are historical, — notably the 
Hancock house destroyed many years ago by fire, and the house in 
which ministers Fiske and Marsh lived, lately removed to the back of 
his land by Charles H. Spear, of Franklin Street, the present owner. 
This latter house Samuel Tompson sold to Fiske, July 12, 1672 (Suf- 
folk Deeds, 13 : 37, Br. Rec. p- 11). Is this the house Parson Tompson 
lived in ? The Webb house seemed to have the first claim to preserva- 
tion, as it is a contemporary and neighbor of the oldest meeting-house 
of which we have any record. It faced the little town common where 
the meeting-house stood, and, as I surmise, was built parallel with 
that branch of the road which diverged to the east to pass around the 
meeting-house. It was "from the fence of Benjamin Webb, south- 
erly " into the common fronting the east door of the meeting-house, 
that sheds were built to shelter the horses of " persons liveing remote " 
(Br. Rec. pp. 41, 66). It is the last of the old houses which were 
situated in this neighborhood. The land on which it stands is that 
parcel which Benjamin Tompson purchased of Thomas Bass about 
1679 (Br. Rec. p. 19), and which, with the house upon it, was sold by 
"Benjamin Tompson, of the town of Roxborough, school-master, 
. . . with the free consent of Prudence his wife, ... to Benjamin 
Webb, of the town of Brantrey, leather-dresser," Nov. 14, 1700 
(Suffolk Deeds, folio 20, p. 489). Probably Tompson built it and lived 
in it while teaching in the little schoolhouse on the common. 

The Ruggles house, now occupied by Miss E. C. Adams and Mr. 
Isaac Hull Adams, is one of the oldest in Quincy ; it is the rear part, 
however, which is the ancient house. This is the house referred to in 
Braintree Records, p. 6, where in 1655 " ther is layd one footwav to 



154 APPENDIX. 

I3' from the Rocke by George Riiggells over the fresh Brooke." The 
"rocke" is still n marked object at the Elm Street end of the "Miller's 
st^'le " path, which is the way then laid out. George Riiggells is living 
in Braintree in 1642 when Boston threatens to sue him for the land 
granted him in 1640 (Boston Records, Second Rep. of Rec. Com. 
pp. 58, 59, 71, 82, 84). Probably the house was built in 1641. 

The Brackett homestead is a ver}- old structure, at least in the 
northwest end of it. Its situation near the shore and its structural 
character mark it as a very ancient building. The Wheelwright grant 
may have included the land upon which it is built. Captain Richard 
Brackett was granted permission to sell house and garden in Boston, 
June 1, 1638 (Bost. Rec. 34). If he then bought land in Braintree it 
was just when AVheelwright was disposing of his grant, and Captain 
Brackett may have been part purchaser. But this is all conjecture ; I 
have not been able to find any facts. I am not at all confident, even, 
that the earliest Capt. Richard Brackett owned and occupied this old 
homestead. His land seems to be in this neighborhood (Br. Rec. 
p. 5), and all the way up Town Brook to the county road (Hancock 
Street) the land at a later time is in the possession of his descend- 
ants. Elm Street was early called the road " leading to Capt. Richard 
Brackett's Landing." But which Capt. Richard is it, — there was 
another Richard born in 1707, — and where is the landing? 

The Adams mansion, built originally about 1730, "as the summer 
resort of a West India planter/' sa}s Mr. C. F. Adams the younger, 
was sequestered as Tory property after the Revolution, and bought 
by John Adams in 1785. Leonard Vassall was the name of this 
planter, a rigid Episcopalian, who in his will before his marriage, in 
1737, made provision that his widow should have the use and improve- 
ment of his real estate during her continuing " a professed member of 
the Episcopal Church of England." The house he built "still con- 
tains one room panelled from floor to ceiling in solid St. Domingo 
mahogany. Originally it was a small dwelling, constructed on a plan 
not unusual in the tropics, with a kitchen and all domestic arrange- 
ments behind the house and in a separate building. In itself it con- 
tained only parlors and sleeping-rooms ; but gradualh' it was added to, 
until the original house is now lost in the wide front and deep gabled 




Lewis Vassall 1730— Virchild 1749— Cranch— Greenleaf 




From a sketch byMvvi ESQuincv, taken in I8U6 



'ITius house slnvAvn Itnnrnch SlJimiiUnt luw (^luiicy.enul na.s Imiltiibout I6W m file tract 
ol laitil qnintcil him Ijy the CoIotk 



Situated on the Taylor Farm, near the corner of Beale and Hancock Streets, Wollaston 



NELIOTVPE PRINTING CO.. BOSTON 



APPENDIX. 155 

wings of the later structure. In this house John Adams died ; and in 
the same room in it were celebrated his ovra golden wedding, and the 
golden wedding of his son and grandson." 

It was a temptation not easily resisted to include among the pictures 
a view of a corner of this drawing-room. Such was its appearance 
while the house was occupied by the late Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Adams. 
The last event of which it was the scene was the burial service over 
the remains of Mrs. Adams. Vocal is that room with great memories. 
What gatherings of notable persons have been there ! What high 
converse has been held there ! On the walls are the portraits of the 
two Presidents and their consorts, and others famous in history. 

Lewis Vassall, a brother of Leonard, built a house on the other side 
of the town similar to the one bought by John Adams. He died in 
1743, having occupied the house about ten years. In 1749 the estate 
was sold at auction to "James Virchild of the Island of St. Chris- 
tophers, Esq." Some years afterward Richard Cranch sold his farm 
back of President's Hill, and took up his residence in the Virchild 
house. He lived here till his death in 1811. John Greenleaf, who 
married Lucy, a daughter of Richard Cranch, subsequently bought 
the estate. For many j-ears it was the homestead of the Cranches 
and the Greenleafs. The estate is now owned by Mr. James 
Edwards. The old house was removed in the year 1857 to Water 
Street, and a fine modern structure built in its place. A painting 
of the house in its original situation was made while still occupied by 
the Greenleafs, by Mr. C. P. Cranch, and from that the heliotype is 
taken. 

The old houses distinguished as the birthplaces of Presidents John 
and John Quincy Adams are described as excellent specimens of the 
dwellings of the farmers of the earliest period of our history. Two 
houses so notable there are not besides in the whole country. Not 
only are they famous as the birthplaces of two of our greater Chief 
Magistrates, but as the scene of that beautifully heroic and devout 
domestic Hfe portrayed in the letters of Abigail Adams. 

A history of considerable length might be written about the Quincy 
mansion, but here one must limit himself to mere dates. The diary 
of John Marshall tells us that "June 14, 1706, we raised Mr. 



156 APPENDIX. 

Quinzey's house," — but whether this was the beginning of the man- 
sion or the building of an addition to it is a little uncertain. Before 
this, on March 22, 1685-86, Samuel Sewall, according to an entry 
in his diar}', "Lodged in the lower room of Unkle Quinsey's new 
house." Was this " new house" the oldest part of the present man- 
sion, or was it the little farm-house with the gambrel roof standing 
a little to the south of the mansion ? I am inclined to the opinion 
that the "new house" of 1G85-86 is the old part of the mansion, 
and that the farm-house was there from the beginning. Indeed, with 
respect to that farm-house the thought recurs again and again that it 
is the original Coddington house. He had a house near here ; the 
brook was first called " Coddington's Brook;" and the land he sold 
was in part on the south of the brook, extending as far as the "buring 
ground." The Quincej's seem to be in Boston till after the departure 
of Coddington. But all this is aside from the real interest which 
attaches to the Quincy mansion as the birthplace and home of so 
many eminent persons. 

The farm-house of the Rev. John Wilson is included among the 
pictures because it is a good specimen of the old architecture, and 
because it was built by the minister whose parish had its centre in 
Boston and its confines in this distant region. He was the first to 
receive a grant of land within the limits of our old township. He 
was given a great farm here, and built him the house in the picture. 
The house he never occupied, but descendants of his lived in it and 
it was long in the family. With regard to the sketch reproduced for 
this book, I quote the following from a letter received from Mr. Thomas 
Minns of Boston in response to inquiries made of him : — 

"I had given considerable attention to the genealogy of the Rev. John 
Wilson, and knew that the later generations of the Quincys were descended 
from him, and that the thousand acres of land granted him by the Colony 
adjoined the Quincy estate. 

" When Mr. A. B. Ellis was writing his history of the First Church in 
Boston, I suggested that he should write to the Quincys and ask if they had 
anything about the Rev. John Wilson. 

" This drew out interesting letters from the late Hon. Josiah Quincy and 
his sister Miss E. S. Quincy, and one of her letters was accompanied by a 
sketch of the house and barn made by her in 1846. 



APPENDIX. 157 

" Mr. E. "Whitefield, an artist, was known to me as having produced several 
interesting volumes of ' Homes of our Forefathers,' and I suggested to ISlr. 
Ellis that he should make this sketch for his book, and it will be found at page 
101. Mr. Whitefield went to Quincy, saw Miss Quincy, who kindly accom- 
panied him to the spot ; and he then and there made this sketch, adding the 
house and barn from the picture made by Miss Quincy in 1846. I think the 
cellar of the house still remains." 

To one who is familiar with the history of the Quincy family, it 
must seem an omission that portraits of other eminent bearers of the 
name are not inserted in this volume. There is Edmund Quincy, 
third of the name, born in 1627, conspicuously active in the affairs of 
town and church, the first major and lieutenant-colonel in Braintree, and 
one of the Committee of Safety which in 1688 formed the provisional 
government of the colony until the arrival of the new charter from 
William and Mar}'. He bequeathed to our church a silver cup as a 
token of his love for it ; his entire life was spent in this place. A 
portrait of him is something to be wished for ; none, however, is in 
existence, as far as I can learn. Of his son, another Edmund, born 
in 1681, there is a portrait extant ; but it is said not to be worthy the 
man. He is the Edmund the Rev. Mr. Hancock writes of so affection- 
ately. A notable man he was in his day, made colonel of the Suffolk 
regiment, — Braintree was then part of Suffolk County, — and com- 
missioned judge of the Superior Court of Judicature. At the age of 
fifty-eight he was appointed by the State special agent to represent its 
interests at the court of Great Britain with respect to the boundary 
line of Massachusetts and New Hampshire ; he died in London while 
executing his trust. He was in his day the most prominent man in 
First Church. It is " Colonel Edmund Quinsej^, Esqr.," who is chosen 
moderator of the first meeting of "ye north-end Precinct," and he 
continues to be the favorite presiding officer and leading spirit of it 
till after the building of the Hancock meeting-house, which he did 
so much to further. He is interesting to us, also, as the father of 
" Dorothy Q. ; " and to afford a glimpse of them and their times I can- 
not do better than to insert here a letter written to the damsel when she 
was visiting at Springfield. Mr. Quincy was living in the mansion by 
the brook, and Dorothy was fifteen years of age, a little older than 
when her portrait was painted, as Dr. Holmes guesses. The letter is 
taken from Miss Eliza Susan Quincy's Memoir of Edmund Quincy, 



158 APPENDIX. 

published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register 

for April, 1884. 

Beainteee, July 8, 1724. 

My dear Daughter, — This is to bring you the good news of my safe 
return home, Commencement day, in the evening, and finding your mother in 
good health. 

With this you will have from your sister Betsey the things you wrote for 
])y me, and from your brother Edmund a small present. My child, you are 
peculiarly favored among your friends in these parts in having a good word 
spoken of you, and good wishes made for you by everybody ; let this hint be 
improved only to quicken and encourage you in virtue and a good Hfe. 

lily love to all the family in which you are, with your Mother's and Grand- 
mothers' also, to them and you. 

I am your dear and loving father, 

E. QUINCY. 

Half a yard of muslin being too little for two head-dresses, your sister has 
sent you one yard wanting half a quarter, which cost ten and sixpence, — and 
the thread (lace) cost fourteen shillings ; so much I paid for, and 't is the best 
thread and muslin of the price. 

Some time before the departure of Edmund Quincy for England, 
Major John Quincy was frequently appointed moderator of the North 
Precinct (or church) meetings ; he also, for years, was a favorite pre- 
siding officer. There is a portrait of him as a child in the possession 
of the Adams family ; but it is the " major" we want to see, — the 
"colonel," the "speaker of the House," the patriot who "was as 
much esteemed and respected as any man in the province." As 
such, unfortunately, his face is not to be looked upon. It was in 
honor of him that the North Precinct was named Quincy. Mr. C. F. 
Adams the younger writes of this incident as follows : — 

"When in 1792 the original town of Braintree was subdivided, the Kev. 
Anthony Wibird was requested to give a name to the place ; but he refusing, 
a similar recpiest was made to the Hon. Richard Cranch, who recommended 
its being called Quincy, in honor of Col. John Quincy. Nor was this the only 
form in which the name was perpetuated. Colonel Quincy had two children, 
a son named Norton in honor of his mother's family, and a daughter who 
became in time the wife of William Smith, of Weymouth. Among the children 
of this couple was one who in October, 1764, married John Adams. In July, 
1767, as old John Quincy lay dying at Mount Wollaston, this granddaughter of 
his gave birth to a son, and when, the next day, as was then the practice, the 
child was baptized, its grandmother, who was present at its birth, requested 



APPENDIX. 159 

that it might be called after her father. Long afterwards, the child thus 
named wrote of this incident : ' It was filial tenderness that gave the name. 
It was the name of one passing from earth to immortality. These have 
been among the strongest huks of my attachment to the name of Quincy, 
and have been to me through life a perpetual admonition to do nothin"- 
unworthy of it.' " 

The portrait of the William Smith, above spoken of, is placed in 
the group of some particular!}- connected with First Church for two 
reasons : First, because that minister is closely related to many per- 
sons prominent in our history-, — one daughter, as we have seen, 
marrying John Adams, and another marrying Richard Cranch. The 
second reason is an antiquarian one, the desire to save the likeness 
from possible destruction. 



MOSES riSKE'S AUTOGRAPH. 

Mr. William Blake Trask transcribed lately- the sermon which 
the Rev. Moses Fiske preached June 4, 1694, before the Ancient and 
Honorable Artillery Company. This was done b}- vote of the com- 
pany, and it is now for the first time printed. While engaged in this 
work, Mr. Trask searched out the material for a quite exhaustive life 
of minister Fiske, with a view to publication. What he has written is 
still in MSS. He found an autograph of Mr. Fiske in Worcester, 
which he at once had engraved. This he Las kindly permitted me 
to use. 



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